Former Anna University Vice Chancellor P Mannar Jawahar has been suspended just two days ahead of his retirement pending a proposed inquiry into “grave charges” against him. The suspension order was issued to him late on Tuesday evening. He is the first academic, who has held the post of a Vice Chancellor at the premier university, to be suspended.
A brief order signed by the university Registrar In-Charge S Ganesan read: “An inquiry into grave charges against P Mannar Jawahar is contemplated. Hence he is suspended from service.” It is learnt the suspension was ordered by Vice Chancellor M Rajaram.
Professor Jawahar, who was given a rare one-year extension as Vice Chancellor by the then Governor Surjit Singh Barnala in April 2011, was working as Professor in the Department of Automobile Engineering since June 2012. He had decided to retire on October 31, though he had the option of continuing as Professor till the end of the current academic year as per University rules.
“Till now, I do not know the exact reason for my suspension. All I can say it that during my tenure as Vice Chancellor, I was open and transparent. I worked for the development of the university all through my 35 years of service,” Jawahar told Express on Wednesday.
A University official said “there is a vigilance inquiry against him.”
Sources indicated that Jawahar was under scrutiny following allegations by three suspended faculty members that he had instructed them to award higher marks to certain VVIP students in semester examinations through a sham revaluation exercise during 2009-2012. Express was the first to extensively report on the revaluation scandal in its Tamil Nadu editions on June 25, 2012 and March 5, 2011.
However, Jawahar had strongly denied favouring any student. An internal inquiry committee had recommended a probe against him in September 2012 itself but the university did not act on it then.
In the past, the DVAC had raided the houses of former Anna University Vice Chancellor D Viswanathan and suspended Vice Chancellor of the erstwhile Anna University of Technology (Coimbatore) Radhakrishnan.
| Full coverage State Elections 2013 Specials on: Narendra Modi | Rahul Gandhi | World Chess Championship |