President Dr Arif Alvi has rejected a petition of Dr Humayun Iqbal for setting aside the orders of conducting a denovo inquiry against him and upheld the major penalty of termination of service imposed upon the accused by the Anti-Harassment Committee and Syndicate of the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical University, Islamabad. The accused had filed an appeal against the decision of Federal Ombudsman for Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace to the extent of conducting denovo inquiry against him.
The Ombudsman had set aside the findings/recommendations of the anti-harassment committee and sent the case back to the University for conducting denovo inquiry. Moreover, in a similar petition complainant had also requested to set aside the impugned order of the Ombudsman and uphold the recommendations of the anti-harassment committee to terminate the services of the accused.
According to the background of the case, the complainant, a graduate trainee, had filed a harassment complaint against the accused before the VC of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical University, Islamabad, who referred the matter to the anti-harassment committee of the University.
The Committee imposed major penalty of termination of service upon the accused in 2018. Furthermore, the Syndicate of the University approved the recommendations of the committee and terminated the accused from the service.