Court restrains TN from taking action against Anna University V-C

The Madras High Court on Saturday handed an interim order restraining the State authorities from taking any choice on an inquiry report, if any filed by a Commission of Inquiry (CoI), against Anna University Vice Chancellor M. K. Surappa. The CoI was constituted to probe into expenses of bribery, corruption, malpractices, monetary irregularities, irregular appointments and so forth against him.

Justice S. Vaidyanathan handed the order after Advocate General Vijay Narayan sought time until March 15 to file an in depth counter affidavit to a writ petition filed by Mr. Surappa difficult a November 2020 Government Order for the constitution of the CoI below retired High Court choose P. Kalaiyarasan. The AG stated no ultimate choice shall be taken until then.

Though the petitioner’s counsel insisted on staying the inquiry or the passing of an order of established order, the AG stated the federal government had no function to play at this stage for the reason that inquiry had already commenced. He stated the State was completely justified in constituting the fee since there have been situations of former vice chancellors having been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment.

Sating that complaints against Mr. Surappa have been solely being inquired into, he stated the ultimate choice on the inquiry report can be taken solely by the Chancellor. On the opposite hand, Additional Solicitor General R. Sankaranarayanan stated the confrontation between the vice chancellor and the State authorities was unlucky and that it have to be resolved amicably.

Surappa denies all expenses

In his affidavit, Mr. Surappa had denied all expenses levelled against him and stated that he hailed from an agrarian household together with his father being a sharecropper in Mirle village of Mysore district in Karnataka. “I have transitioned from cattle grazing to Cambridge University by sheer dint of hard work, honesty and sincerity,” the affidavit learn.

Claiming to have spearheaded main improvement work within the University ever since he assumed workplace in April 2018, he claimed that his opposition to the State authorities’s choice to cross all engineering college students with out conducting arrear examinations because of COVID-19 and the efforts taken by him to acquire an Institute of Eminence (IoE) standing for the college triggered a confrontation.

The petitioner stated that he had begun taking steps for acquiring IoE standing in June 2020 as a result of it will convey to Anna University a grant of ₹1,000 crore, as against the current annual grant of ₹40 crore, over a interval of 5 years and that cash could possibly be spent on analysis. The standing would additionally give extra autonomy to the varsity and the liberty to find out charges, course construction and governance.

Such IoE standing could possibly be obtained with a pre-condition that the college would proceed to comply with the State’s 69% reservation coverage in admissions and never the Centre’s 49.5% reservation coverage. Nevertheless, the transfer triggered an enormous political row since reservation was an essential topic of electoral politics and in addition as a result of the federal government didn’t need its management over the college to be marginalised in any method, he stated.

‘Refused misuse of funds’

Mr. Surappa additionally said that he refused to half with college funds for buying ornamental objects on the workplaces of the Higher Education Minister and the Secretary. He additionally took again 4 college automobiles utilized by the Minister and the Secretary. “When all these issues have been corrected upon me as vice chancellor, I have drawn the ire of the ruling dispensation,” he claimed.

Stating that the primary grievance against him was lodged within the title of 1 A. Suresh from Adikudy village in Lalgudi Taluk of Tiruchi district on February 21, 2020, he stated the grievance was forwarded to the college from the Prime Minister’s grievance cell and it was responded to promptly. However, the State authorities sat over it for 262 days and forwarded it to the college solely on October 13, 2020.

After replying to the State authorities too, the college discovered that the grievance had been made below a fictitious title and tackle. Hence, it lodged a police grievance to hint out the true complainant. In the meantime, the CoI started holding a roving inquiry with out going into any specifics. Several paperwork have been summoned, and the college have been coerced to depose against him, the petitioner alleged.

Even his former home assist was not spared. She was summoned to the inquiry to search out out if she had accompanied his household on a overseas journey although the lady doesn’t even maintain a passport. “I owed an apology to the maid and gave it but the trauma and anguish undergone by her can be imagined. This singular instance is testimony to the intent of the State” to repair him, he stated and sought an interim keep.