Mess in IIT Kharagpur

IIT spares official under probe By Basant Kumar Mohanty

New Delhi, April 27: The Kharagpur IIT has withdrawn charges of alleged financial irregularities against registrar D. Gunasekaran and granted him voluntary retirement despite a CBI recommendation for departmental action.

The IIT's board of governors, which had earlier allowed framing of charges against the official, allowed him to retire with full pension benefits.

According to the Central Civil Service (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules of 1965, which IIT Kharagpur follows, an employee indicted for alleged irregularities should not be granted voluntary retirement before completion of disciplinary proceedings.

Gunasekaran had allegedly cleared an honorarium of Rs 2.1 lakh for some faculty and other staff towards classes and consultation charges for a self-financing course "in violation of his financial powers".

The CBI, which probed the allegation following a complaint to the Centre by a former employee of the IIT, had recommended regular departmental action against Gunasekaran.

After the CBI submitted its report, the IIT last year set up a committee under Justice (retd) Ronojit Mitra to probe the administrative lapses.

The Mitra committee, too, indicted Gunasekaran. The IIT's board then allowed charges to be framed against the official, who had by then proceeded on leave. The institute also suspended Gunasekaran.

But in a sudden move, the IIT's board last month decided to drop the charges and grant the official voluntary retirement, a source said.

"Gunasekaran was relieved on the 16th of this month. The board of governors granted his request for voluntary retirement. All the issues with him have been settled," officiating registrar T.K. Ghosal said.

According to the service rules, an employee who has been indicted by an investigating agency for any irregularity has to face disciplinary proceedings. He has to reply to the charges and, if required, a separate committee will have to be set up to look into the reply and suggest whether any action should be taken or not.

In this case, Gunasekaran should have replied to the charges and the IIT should have set up a committee to study his reply.

Gunasekaran has been alleging that IIT authorities were not taking any action against director Damodar Acharya, who has been indicted by the CBI in a separate case.

The CBI has recommended regular departmental action against Acharya for allowing increase of seats in a private engineering college when he was chairman of technical education regulator AICTE, although an expert committee had advised against the move.

When reached over phone, Acharya hung up. "I am in a meeting," he said before disconnecting the line.

Gunasekaran could not be reached on his mobile.

When the whole system has become corrupt, why should education be out of it. IIT Kharagpur seems to be specially susceptible to it ad there have been earlier cases. By the IIT governing body deciding to sweep everything under the carpet, it shows that it has got many more skeletons in its cupboard which they are not willing to expose. It is fit case for the Supreme Court to interfere to reach the proper conclusion through a PIL