Chennai: The recruitment which has become one of the major sources of corruption in all state universities has come to the light following the arrest of A.Ganapathy, vice-chancellor of Bharathiar University in Coimbatore, on Saturday.
Educationists allege that the rot is deeper and wider, starting from the vice-chancellors' appointment in which crores of money are allegedly exchanged.
They further alleged that all the universities including Anna University and Madras University have appointed the teaching and non-teaching staff by taking money during the tenures of previous vice-chancellors.
M.Anandakrishnan, former chairman, IIT Kanpur, called the arrest as most welcoming development. “Whenever there are complaints of corruption on the part of senior educationists, the people generally tend to ignore it. For the first time, the action has been taken and he was caught red-handed,” he said.
He said, “The whole thing started when the politicians, sometimes even some chancellors started getting money for the appointment of vice-chancellors. There were ministers and chancellors collecting crores of rupees for appointing vice-chancellors. Even the search committee members were taking money.”
“Fortunately, that phase is over now. I don't think it is happening anymore. Now, I am happy that they are taking action against residual characters like Bharathiar University VC,” he added.
The senior academician further expressed hope that the appointing authorities would ensure that no corrupt persons are appointed as vice-chancellors and no semblance of exchange of money takes place in appointing the VCs and professors
Previously, Anna Univ-ersity Coimbatore VC Radhakrishnan was suspended based on the corruption charge and he was subsequently dismissed.
“It is very sad state of affairs in higher education. Bharathiar University is one of the top universities in the country and ranked 28th in NIRF ranking. The action against VC should have been initiated much earlier,” said E.Balagurusamy, former Vice-Chancellor, Anna University.
“It should be the lesson for everyone who collecting money for appointments. These VCs are collecting money because they already paid for the post. There are other VCs who are equally corrupt and should also be arrested,” he demanded.
He said the state government should look into all the appointments made in the last 10 years at Bharathiar University and punish those involved in the corruption.
“The previous two VCs of Bharathiar University were more corrupt than Ganapathy,” he said He demanded a state level inquiry committee headed by a retired judge of high court to probe the complaints against the vice-chancellors of other universities. The eminent academicians could be the members of the committee.
There are complaints of corruption in other universities like Periyar University and Manonmaniam Sundaranar University in recent times. The former registrar of the Periyar University in Salem and one of the contenders for the post of the vice-chancellor of the university K. Angamuthu committed suicide in December 2017 following a police complaint against him by the university over the missing files.
There were allegations of irregularities against him over the recruitment of staff in 2012-13.
The allegation was he failed to hand over the files relating to recruitment process when he demitted office as registrar. To standardise recruitment process and avoid discrepancies, the higher education department is considering a proposal for centralising the recruitment for universities and colleges in the state.
