KASARAGOD: The Central University of Kerala, under the former vice-chancellor Prof G Gopa Kumar, ruined the career of a founding administrator by foisting false charges and expelling him from service, found Kerala High Court.
In a scathing order, the division bench of the High Court of Kerala exposed the 'hollowness' of the charge levelled against the then joint registrar S Gopinath (59) and expulsion order.
The justice came a bit too late for Gopinath -- who was first suspended from service in December 2015 -- as he hit the retirement age on May 31, 2021. "Since he retired from service, we hold that he will be entitled to all consequential service benefits..., arrears of salary and other service benefits," division bench justices A K Jayasankaran Nambiar and Gopinath P wrote in their order.
The justices ordered that the university should pay the money -- which Gopinath calculated to be around Rs 1.3 crore -- within three months.
The hollow case
Central University of Kerala -- under the first vice-chancellor Prof Jancy James -- took a building on rent to house the men's hostel in Kanhangad on August 21, 2013.
After Prof G Gopakumar took charge as vice-chancellor, he suspended joint registrar S Gopinath on May 5, 2017, accusing him of not taking the sanction of the vice-chancellor or the then registrar before taking the building on rent.
The university also accused Gopinath of unilaterally deciding Rs 75,000 as rent for the building and the advance amount as Rs 2.25 lakh (three months' rent) and releasing the money to the owner without the VC's approval or obtaining the 'reasonable rent' certificate from the Central Public Works Department (CPWD).
By fixing a rent much higher than the CPWD's reasonable rent, the university incurred a huge loss, it alleged.
After suspending him, the university set up an Enquiry Committee with the controller of examination M Muralidharan Namibar as the enquiry officer.
Nambiar concluded that all the charges against Gopinath were true. Based on the findings, vice-chancellor Prof Gopakumar expelled Gopinath from service on October 17, 2019.
Facts of the case
Gopinath said Prof Gopakumar first suspended him in December 2015 over outsourcing of security guards' jobs in the university. Even when the first case was being probed, he was suspended over renting the hostel building. "The university did not pursue the first case and the second charge was levelled against me by hiding crucial documents and order," he said.
Gopinath moved the high court and the single bench found no error in the proceedings of the university and refused to intervene. But the division bench dug out the diabolical lies the university officials weaved to frame and oust Gopinath.
Justices A K Jayasankaran Nambiar and Gopinath P found that the hostel building was identified by a four-member search committee headed by Prof G M Nair. The other members of the search committee were the then dean of students welfare Prof Vincent Mathew, then finance officer P Bhaskaran and then registrar Sasidharan. The rent and advance amount to be paid to the owner were also decided by the search committee and Gopinath was not a part of it.
Prof Nair said he had placed these facts before Muralidharan's enquiry committee. The Division Bench noted that the minutes of the Search Committee were missing from the university's file.
But Gopinath as the deputy registrar of the university put out a note on August 8, 2013, based on the recommendations of the search committee. The note was seen by the registrar and the vice-chancellor, who approved the proposal on August 21, 2013.
Later, the university's registrar Sasidharan issued an administrative order for taking the building for rent. The administrative order clearly accorded the approval for the sanctioning of the rent at Rs 75,000 per month and an advance of Rs 2.25 lakh (equivalent to three months' rent) to be paid to the owner of the building, and also mentioned that the payment will be reviewed after the CPWD finalises the reasonable rent.
The order was marked to the personal assistants of the VC and the registrar.
Gopinath countersigned the order only eight days after the money was sanctioned. "Therefore, we fail to understand how the Enquiry Officer could have reached the finding that it was the writ petitioner, who made the payment," the court said in the order.
What the court found strange was even after Gopinath was suspended and CPWD issued the reasonable rate certificate, the university renewed the hostel rent agreement with the building owner at the same rate, which "speaks volumes of the hollowness of the charge levelled against the writ petitioner".
Importantly, the court noted that even if the allegations against Gopinath were true, the punishment meted out to him was "shockingly disproportionate".