The Allahabad High Court has sentenced the vice-chancellor of the Gorakhpur university, Mr Arun Kumar to two months of imprisonment for non compliance of the court’s orders to pay arrears to a university lecturer Mr V N Pandey.

The court has also sentenced the Registrar Mr S C Sharma and deputy Registrar Mr A K Pal to one-month imprisonment. The court has also imposed a fine of Rs. 50,000 on the VC and Rs 25,000 each on Mr Sharma and Mr Pal.

A single bench headed by Justice D P Singh passed the order on a contempt petition moved by Mr Pandey, who is a lecturer in the University’s Botany Department.

Pandey had claimed that the varsity administration had failed to clear his arrears despite orders given by the court in 2001.

The bench directed that the fine be realised as land dues by the district administration, if it was not paid by the trio within the stipulated time.

Mr Arun Kumar has claimed that the university has already cleared Mr Pandey’s dues and the same were paid to him earlier this month. “He did not bring the facts before the court”, said Kumar.

The VC also claims that he had nothing to do with the entire episode as he was not heading the university in 2001, when the order was passed. “The order was brought to me on November 2006 and I gave orders for instant compliance. We have receipts showing that Mr Pandey has received the due arrears and payments have also been made to his provident fund and to the income tax department”.


The court has directed the three to present themselves before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Lucknow by August 10 for undergoing the sentence.