THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala Agricultural University has suspended an assistant professor in less than 24 hours after he exposed the falling standards of his institution before a team from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
However, the university has cited misconduct towards the registrar as the reason for suspending Dr K D Prathapan, assistant professor at the department of agricultural entomology in the College of Agriculture, Vellayani, under the university.
The notice issued on January 10 said Prathapan intimidated the registrar, a woman, while on a train journey on November 12. He is alleged to have threatened the registrar for sending an official communication to another faculty member.
Some senior faculty members who did not want to be named told TNIE that Prathapan was victimised for a 20-minute address on the university’s functioning before the ICAR team.
The ICAR team which visited the Vellayani college on January 9 had organised an open session for teachers to know about their suggestions.
“In his presentation, Prathapan cited the reasons he identified for the fall of the university from first rank in ICAR rating in 2011 to 34 in 2018,” said his colleague.
In his address, Prathapan alleged that the malpractice in promotions resulted in incompetent people chairing important posts. The number of students winning fellowships saw a drastic fall. Several teachers and students are publishing research papers in predatory journals, he said.
The assistant professor also alleged that the university vice-chancellor who took charge some two years ago was yet to visit the Vellayani campus.
Prathapan’s well-wishers said a high court case filed by Prathapan seeking remedy for the anomalies in promotions was another reason for the vindictive action by higher-ups.
Earlier, the government’s finance inspection wing had found that the KAU tweaked UGC guidelines to help some teachers get undue promotion or deny it to some deserving candidates.
The university is yet to act upon the FIW report which called for giving promotion to Prathapan, who is among the best teachers in the university as per international academic standards.
The vice-chancellor was not available for comment.