In continuation with the Centre’s action against sacked vice-chancellor Sushanta Duttagupta of Visva Bharati University, the CBI conducted raids at the campus and the tainted academic’s house on Tuesday.
In a coordinated raid, a team from the central agency raided the campus at Santiniketan, around 190 Km from Kolkata, while another team called on Duttagupta at his Salt Lake residence in the eastern fringes of Kolkata since morning. The team at Santiniketan searched various offices of the tree-laden campus and seized a number of “relevant” documents and files.
The team at Salt Lake is also believed to have stumbled upon some documents. Duttagupta was sacked in February after President Pranab Mukherjee, Visitor of all central universities including Visva Bharati, gave his approval to the process, which was initiated last year. Duttagupta is charged with financial and administrative irregularities during his tenure as VC since 2011.
He has been accused of drawing salary from Visva Bharati while receiving pension from Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, an institute he served earlier.
‘Getting paid twice’
While laws of the Ministry of Human Resources Development states that one cannot get paid by the government twice, ideally Duttagupta should have got his pension amount deducted from the pay he received as VC. After a lot of administrative to and fro, MHRD referred the matter to President Mukherjee, who following inquiries, approved Duttagupta’s termination.
The former VC is also accused with making around 25 illegal appointments, jobs that are currently under MHRD scrutiny and the appointees could also get terminated, sources said. Among filling a number of key chairs, he appointed the Controller of Examinations in violation of the Visva Bharati Act and without following UGC eligibility guidelines.
Published 24 May 2016, 20:09 IST