Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Oct 11: Taking serious cognizance of the alleged violation of statutes and misuse of official position in Jammu University, during the tenure of incumbent Vice-Chancellor Prof R D Sharma, Governor N N Vohra has sought a detailed inquiry into the series of complaints made by a senior faculty member, who retired recently.
Acting on direction of the Governor, who is also Chancellor of the Jammu University, Registrar JU has constituted a four -member committee to verify the complaints of favouritism, discrimination, misuse of official position and violation of statutes in the university.
The committee, headed by Prof Anil Raina of Environment Sciences (Convener) and comprising of Prof Arvind Jasrotia of Law Department (Member), Prof Satnam Kour of English Department (Member) and Dritika Singh, Assistant Registrar (Member Secretary), also held its first meeting today and discussed the nature of complaints, official sources told the Excelsior.
The committee will also verify the complaints of offering administrative positions by the Vice-Chancellor Prof R D Sharma to the teachers and officers with blemish record and accused of various scams and financial loss to the university due to inefficiency of the incumbent VC.
According to the sources, the committee was constituted following an official communiqué GS-60(JU) 2017/4809-2017, received by the Jammu University from the Governor’s Secretariat.
“As desired by the Governor’s Secretariat, committee of four members is constituted to verify the complaints of violation of Statutes, misuse of official position, victimization of selected faculty and favouritism,” sources quoted the order, issued by Registrar JU.
Sources said that the Governor has taken serious cognizance of the media reports of alleged irregularities in Jammu University and more particularly the written complaints, forwarded by Prof Rajinder Gupta, former Head of the Department of Economics Department in JU, who attained age of superannuation only a few months back.
While elaborating, sources said that Prof Gupta has alleged irregularities, victimization and misuse of official position by the VC to favour some of his favorites contrary to the provisions of the University regulations and statutes thus leading to serious financial implications.
Alleging that administrative positions were offered by Prof R D Sharma to the teachers and officers with blemish record and accused of various scams, Prof Gupta has listed a number of examples in this regard where the rules were bended to favour the persons.
Referring to one of the cases of appointment, in which rules were blatantly violated to ensure that the particular persons was appointed as Professor of Economics under Career Advancement Scheme, the complaint said that API score was manipulated and then old resolution of the previous Council was applied concealing the latest resolution.
There is also complaint of misuse of official position and arbitrarily use of discretionary power by the incumbent Vice -Chancellor in giving re-employment to those retiring teachers, who retired in the end session or when the session was not in progress. This also resulted in financial loss to the university.
In his complaint, the former JU professor has further alleged that the gang of persons, who act on the VC’s behalf doing what he wants, i. e. tormenting members of the faculty, scholars and students, have grown bolder by the day since no action has been taken even as many of wrong doings in the university have been exposed.
“The continuation of the present VC is dangerous for the growth of the institution. Your goodself is therefore requested to please constitute an Enquiry Committee to look into all these cases and functioning of the VC Dr R D Sharma and save this A+ university from being doomed,” the former Professor has appealed the Governor in his complaint.
When contacted, Prof Rajinder Gupta told the Excelsior that he was not satisfied with this university probe, which is ought to be biased. “I demand a thorough probe by a sitting judge to unearth the scandals in university and if my allegations are proven wrong, I shall bear all the expenditures of the enquiry,” he said.
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