COIMBATORE: Officials of the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) seized documents relating to the recruitment of staff from the Bharathiar University Vice Chancellor’s office on Friday. The records were taken away after searching its office for nearly 12 hours.
The documents were seized to investigate alleged irregularities in recruitments, following the arrest of Vice Chancellor A Ganapathi, on being caught red-handed while accepting a bribe. He has since been suspended. The suspension order from the Governor office was served to Ganapathi, who has been lodged in the Coimbatore Central Prison.
The seized documents will be examined thoroughly with the help of experts, DVAC officials said. However, they remained tight-lipped about the seized documents. Sources privy to the investigation told Express that the documents were retrieved to support the case registered against Ganapathi. The DVAC will file another FIR against him in connection with the recruitment of staff.
On Thursday, DAVC officials had questioned the Vice Chancellor’s personal assistants as well as the Registrar and a few heads of departments.
On Friday, the DVAC’s petition for custody of Ganapathi came up for hearing before Chief Judicial Magistrate K R Madhurasekaran, who adjourned the case to Monday.
Ganapathi told the Magistrate that he was not even given water in the prison. “As there is a lot of media attention on the case, prison authorities are very reluctant to serve even hot water,” he told the judge.
The judge then told Ganapathi to convey it to his counsel. Subsequently, a separate petition was filed by senior defence counsel C Gnanabharathi, seeking Class A facilities for Ganapathi in the prison. This request will also be taken up on Monday. The judge also ordered that Ganapathi be produced in court on Monday.