Pakistan International Airline has sacked 53 of its employees whose degrees were fake. 3 captains and 50 cabin crew lost their jobs after the airline acted on the orders of the supreme court. Earlier The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) revealed before a Supreme Court bench on Friday that academic credentials of seven pilots of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) had been found to be bogus and five of them had not even taken their high school or matric certificates. Justice Ijazul Ahsan, a member of the three-judge bench, observed that a non-matric person could not even drive a bus but middle-pass people had been flying aeroplanes, putting the lives of passengers in danger.
Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar was heading a bench that is hearing a matter relating to the verification of degrees of pilots and other staff of the national flag carrier.
CAA lawyer complained to the court about the problems the authority is facing in verification of degrees. He told the court that PIA was also delaying the provision of record of its employees, including pilots and cabin crew.
According to information provided by CAA lawyer in the court “cases of 4,321 employees had been verified while 402 were still pending.”
The bench directed the CAA counsel to have a meeting in the conference room of the SC with the officials of the PIA, education boards and the universities to sort out the pending cases. After the break, the CAA lawyer updated the court that now only 207 cases left to be verified. The CJP accepted the request for more time and adjourned the hearing till Jan 9.
CJP Nisar also modified an earlier order and ruled that the PIA was free to retain or extend services of its contract employees in accordance with the law. He further asked the PIA to submit a list of its all 498 pilots along with their result of licence examination.