Terminate six faculties appointed against annulled notification, demands ex-Bharathiar Uni professor

At a time when the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption and state government appointed three members expert committee are probing the recruitments made during the tenure of previous Vice-Chancellors, a retired professor of Bharathiar University has petitioned university authorities to initiate criminal proceeding against officials who have issued appointment orders to six faculty members based on an annulled advertisement notification.

To his support, P Kandaswamy, former Director of School of Mathematics and Statistics, has also submitted replied obtained under the Right To Information (RTI) Act from the university. In an RTI reply dated May 9, 2018, the university said six faculty members N Dharmaraj, K Suresh, E Chandra, PB Pankajavalli, K Geetha and N Annapoorani have joined against the advertisement nos. E1/2010/18995-19012. It should be noted that Dharmaraj, was under suspension after DVAC included his name as second accused in the case where former VC A Ganapathy was arrested for accepting a bribe.

To a question, "What are the decisions taken at the syndicate meeting held on October 4, 2012, regarding advertisement nos. E1/2010/18995-19012", university replied that "In respect of regular 35 posts, to stop any further processing of the recruitment process and to start afresh recruitment process by following all the norms and rules of the UGC, Tamil Nadu Government and Bharathiar University Act, statutes and regulation in this regard. Further, resolved to declare the earlier recruitment as annulled and not binding."

In another RTI reply dated March 6, 2019, the university has said that there is no court order directing the university to issue appointment to the above individuals and decision to appoint them was taken by the syndicate. Citing these replies, Kandaswamy in his letter has said that the decision to annul the advertisement was submitted to the Madras High Court by then VC G James Pitchai as an affidavit to WA 1702 and 1756 of 2011. "It is vividly clear from the above facts that the above-cited advertisement stood annulled and no appointments should have been made," he added.

Under these circumstances, the appointment orders issued on April 15, 2015 and October 12, 2015 are illegal and irregular and hence the only option before you now to cancel these orders and terminate the appointees with immediate effect and initiate criminal proceedings against then VC and Registrar, who are responsible for the issue of these appointment order distorting facts.

When contacted, present Registrar (in charge) K Murugan said they are taking steps to bring this to the knowledge of the Vice-Chancellor committee, its convenor (Higher Education Secretary) and the syndicate.