COIMBATORE: In a first, a former vice chancellor of a state-run university was convicted by a court in Tamil Nadu on corruption charges on Saturday. R Radhakrishnan, who served as the chancellor of the Anna University (Coimbatore) in 2008 & 2009, was sentenced by the trial court to serve five years in jail as the court found him guilty of accepting Rs 40,000 as bribe from a contractor to give him the contract for procuring benches for the university.
The trial court judge KR Madura Sekaran held Radhakrishnan guilty of accepting bribe from the contractor under sections 7 and 13(2)D of Prevention of Corruption Act and sentenced him to undergo five years of rigorous imprisonment. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on him.
Radhakrishnan took charge as the vice-chancellor of the Anna University (Coimbatore) in 2008. But trouble began for Radhakrishnan when the Directorate of Vigilence and Anti-corruption (DVAC) got a tip off that he had accepted Rs 40,000 bribe from a contractor to give him the purchase order for benches and desks for the classrooms.
Following an inquiry, the DVAC filed an FIR in August 2009 and the following month the state government removed him from the vice chancellor post to facilitate the vigilance probe. After nearly three years, the chargesheet was filed in 2012.
During the investigations in the bribe case, the vigilance also found that Radhakrishnan had accumulated wealth in the name of his wife Amirtha Sanjeevi. A separate case of disproportionate wealth was filed by the vigilance agency and is currently under trial.
The case again came to limelight recently when Radhakrishnan failed to appear for the hearings and he was arrested after the court issued a warrant to arrest him.