COIMBATORE: The Madras High Court has formed a five-member committee to scrutinise the faculty member appointments at the Bharathiar University in 2016. The court formed the panel on October 28 on a writ petition filed by faculty members against a previous four-member committee nominated by the university in June to scrutinise the 2016 appointments.
Furthermore, the court said that scrutiny by the new committee shall take place in line with the 2016 University Grants Commission (UGC) regulations.
The committee has been instructed to submit a scrutiny report to the V-C committee member within three months. Further course of action will be decided based on the report, the HC added.
The newly-formed committee features two associate professors, D Sathiyavan (Economics) and K Sathyanarayan (Management Studies) from the University of Madras; two assistant professors, R Venkatesh from Anna Centre for Public Affairs and T M Sridhar (Analytical Chemistry) also from the University of Madras, and professor Sangamithra (Economics) from the Bharathiar University.
According to sources, Bharathiar University recruited 68 faculty members in 2016. Subsequently, the then Vice-Chancellor A Ganapathy was arrested by the DVAC for taking bribes for confirming jobs. During initial inquiry, allegations were raised that the faculty members were not appointed as per UGC regulations. Later, upon DVAC’s direction in February, Bharathiar University nominated a four-member committee to review the applications and other documents related to the 2016 appointments.
The university’s committee included three department heads: M Ilanchelian, S Saravanan, A R Bhavana, and professor N R Suresh Babu. Meanwhile, around 10 faculty members who were appointed in 2016 appealed to the registrar (in-charge) to remove two members from the panel, stating that they had filed a case against the 2016 appointments, which was later dismissed. They claimed the panel’s scrutiny would not be fair, according to sources.
However, the university administration refused to remove them, leading to the faculty members filing a writ petition in the HC. Considering the petitioners’ lack of confidence in the university-appointed committee to conduct a fair probe, the court formed the five-member committee, sources said.
TNIE was unable to reach the Bharathiar University’s Registrar (in-charge) Rupa Gunaseelan for comments.