BELGAUM: Former Vice-Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), K Balaveera Reddy, registered his evidence in the JMFC III Court on cases of cheating, forgery, defamation and copyright filed against VTU Vice-Chancellor, H P Khincha, and Registrar, K V A Balaji, in Belgaum on Thursday.
He alleged that the duo copied from the book ‘Computer-Aided Engineering Drawing (CAED)’ which he had authored in 2006, without his acknowledgement.
The court has postponed the hearing of the case to June 1.
Reddy told Express that on learning of the release of the so-called second edition, he sought information under the Right To Information (RTI) Act by addressing five letters to the Public Information Officer of VTU. “It was stated in the reply that no permission was obtained from any of the VTU authorities for printing.
It also said that only corrections have been incorporated in the second edition,” he said.
The second RTI reply informed that there was no agenda and proceedings of the meeting held on October 16, 2009, were not recorded, but TA/DA was paid to the authors who attended it. The accused had conducted two meetings on March 30 and May 22, 2009, without inviting me, Reddy said.
He added that the third RTI reply stated that there was no change in the syllabi between the first and ‘second’ edition of CAED. A total of 50,000 books have been printed and distributed to regional offices for sale without obtaining the invoice, delivery note and bill from the printer, he alleged.
“The fifth RTI reply stated that the accused has addressed a letter to the co-authors and confirmed that I had contributed equally in authoring and editing the first edition of CAED released in 2006,” Reddy said.