CHENNAI: Former Annamalai University Vice-Chancellor M Ramanathan and the varsity’s former registrar M Rathinasabapathy have been booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act for allegedly mishandling funds, causing a huge financial loss to the university.
According to the First Information Report (FIR) filed by Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) on October 16, the accused failed to remit the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) funds of university employees to their respective accounts and illegally diverted the funds towards salary and other university expenses.
To subscribe to the CPS, each employee would pay a monthly contribution of 10 per cent of Basic Pay and Dearness Allowance from his/her salary and an equivalent contribution would be made by the State government for each employee. During the financial years 2008-2009 and 2012-2013, the CPS subscription amounts were allegedly deducted from the staff. However, the contributions, along with the management contribution towards CPS were not credited to the accounts since the cheques were not presented in the bank, the FIR said.
The unrealised cheques in the pension fund were worth Rs 40.59 crore as on July 2013, the FIR said.The university’s general funds, which included major grants from the State Government, was also mismanaged, the FIR said. From the period between April 2008 and July 2012, `11.25 crore was transferred from the general account to the accounts of self-financing courses and vice-versa although the self-financing courses had separate bank accounts.
Turning to charges of excess appointments, the DVAC said the sanctioned strength of non-teaching staff in 1996 was 1,110. However, in 2012, the university had a total of 9,135 staff on its rolls. Further, violating UGC norms, appointment of teaching staff had been increased although the enrolment of students decreased.
During 2009-2010, there was no student enrolment in the information centres which had 206 staff members.“It is further revealed that there was abnormal appointment of teaching and non-teaching staff as against the actual sanctions/requirement and this has led to the deep financial crisis, which in turn had led to the borrowing of money from other earmarked funds, pre-closing of Fixed Deposits and non-payment of regular dues to the earmarked funds,” the FIR said. Ramanathan was suspended in April 2013.