One-man panel to probe incidents at B'lore varsity

Justice (retd) K Shivashankar Bhat asked to submit report in 6 months

Governor H R Bhardwaj, who is also the chancellor of all the universities in the State, has appointed a one-man commission of inquiry to look into unsavoury incidents at Bangalore University.

Retired judge of the High Court Justice K Shivashankar Bhat has been asked to submit his inquiry report within six months.

The varsity first hogged the limelight for alleged irregularities in the construction of its postgraduate centre in Kolar. A few members of the varsity’s highest decision-making body - Syndicate, accused the former Registrar (Administration), R M Ranganath and also Vice-Chancellor, N Prabhu Dev, of increasing the cost of the project without obtaining necessary approval.

A section of students, teachers, and other employees of the university staged a series of protests, condemning what they termed “indifference” of the VC towards their problems.
The agitation intensified when the VC stopped visiting the main campus at Jnanabharathi. Things came to a head when students gheraoed the VC on December 14, 2011. Two days later, activists of Sri Ram Sene assaulted B R Niranjan, the Director of BU’s Correspondence Courses and Distance Education, for refusing to conduct examination at a few study centres. Last Monday, Dev was also assaulted.

Scope of inquiry

Justice Bhat will investigate the complaints of large-scale malpractices in the examinations of distance education courses at various study centres, and their subsequent cancellation.

Besides, the Commission will look into the circumstances behind the attack on Niranjan, and the people responsible for it; the allegations and counter-allegations about the construction of the PG centre in Kolar, and fix the responsibility, if any, for causing delay in the completion of the project.

The task of the panel also includes identifying those responsible for vitiating the atmosphere on BU’s Jnanabharathi campus and recommending remedial measures to restore the academic environment.

The commission will also inquire into the incidents that disrupt peace on the campus and that may occur during the pendency of course the inquiry.

The VC has welcomed the appointment of the Commission.

He said that the Governor had taken the recent incidents in the university very seriously and hence ordered the inquiry. “I hope the responsibilities are fixed,” he told Deccan Herald.

Registrar (Administration), B C Mylarappa, also welcomed the setting up of the panel. He urged Justice Bhat to carry out a comprehensive probe, expose the guilty, and recommend punishment for them.

He hoped that the Commission would expose the irregularities in the construction of the Kolar PG centre and bring the guilty to book.

 “The PG centre work symbolises a large bunch of misdeeds. The wrongdoings have to be exposed and the responsibility fixed,” Mylarappa said.

But Dev disagreed. He said that the Commission ought to take all the incidents seriously and give each of them equal importance.

“It’s not for others to suggest what should be probed seriously and what should not. Every recent incident is serious,” he added.

About the malpractices in the distance education examination, Mylarappa felt that the university was at fault. “Why didn’t it take the required measures before the examinations were conducted? Why blame the study centres alone?,”