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Lokayukta indicts Mysore university VC

By Our Special Correspondent

Bangalore April 22. In a development without a precedent in the annals of university education in the State, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mysore, S.N.Hegde, has been held guilty of corruption and extortion by the Lokayukta, Justice N.Venkatachala.

The Lokayukta has held B.R.Ananthan, Chairman of the Department of Business Management in the university, guilty of "unlawful gain for himself, even if it is not considered as a bribe.'' However, the former Supreme Court judge has held as unsubstantiated the allegations against B.Shivaraj and D.Ananda, readers in the Department of Studies in Business Administration in the university.

Mr. Venkatachala has, in his report submitted to the Government, recommended that Prof. Hegde should not be allowed to hold the post of Vice-Chancellor having regard to the serious nature of the allegations against him. He has also recommended that the Government order an inquiry by a person who has been a judge of the High Court or the Supreme Court against Prof. Hegde as laid down in the Karnataka State Universities Act of 2000.

Prof. Hegde is serving his second term as Vice-Chancellor of the 77-year-old University of Mysore, the oldest in the State and the first to be opened in a princely State.

The Lokayukta had inquired into a complaint from an NRI, the Late Krishnalingaiah Rama Das, Chairman, TTL College of Business Management, Mysore, who was living in Kansas State in the U.S. In October 2002, he had complained to the anti-corruption authority that on August 13, 2001 Prof. Hegde had obtained from him (complainant) through his daughter, Sandhya Hegde, US $ 7,000 through money order on an American bank. Rama Das, who died in November 2002, was a psychiatrist. He alleged that Prof. Hegde had told him to make the payment to his wife and daughter in return for using his authority and influence as Vice-Chancellor with the All India Council of Technical Education to increase the intake of MBA students at the college from 40 to 60 a year and also start the B.Com course.

In support of his allegation he had presented the photocopy of an e-mail sent by the wife of the Vice-Chancellor on August 10, 2001. K.Mahadev, a member of the Syndicate of the University, had followed up Rama Das's complaint at various levels.

In his 47-page order, the Lokayukta has rejected Prof. Hegde's defence that he had paid in advance in Indian currency (Rs.3.15 lakh) to Rama Das for the $ 7,000 taken by his daughter.

He has made the observation that there was no possibility of a Vice-Chancellor, a salaried officer, having kept ready cash of unaccounted Rs.3.15 lakh for payment as alleged by him. He was not even able to give the specific dates of such payments or specific places of such payments, or the source from which he got such huge amounts. The defence plea that it was not a bribe "calls to be dubbed as concocted and a defence set up to somehow wriggle out of the allegation... Consequently I find that Prof. Hegde is guilty of bribe taking/extortion which is the substance of the allegations made against him.''

The Lokayukta has also found the Vice-Chancellor guilty of having abused his position as a public servant to obtain a gain for himself and cause undue harm and hardship to TTL College of Business Management; actuated by personal interest and improper or corrupt motive; guilty of lack of integrity in his capacity as a public servant and having failed to act in accordance with the norms of integrity and conduct which ought to be followed by public servants such as the vice-chancellor.

The allegation upheld against Prof. Ananthan was that he abused his position as Chairman of the Department of Management Studies in the university to demand and take from the TTL College Rs.1.64 lakh for affixing his signature on the project report submitted by 41 students of the college (at the rate of Rs.4,000 per student). Though he was also guilty of making unlawful gain and misconduct, only the Syndicate of the university should be directed to hold disciplinary proceedings against him, as he was an officer of the university and not a government servant.

Mr. Venkatachala has told the Government to take urgent and appropriate action having regard to the corruption in high places in the University of Mysore.

Prof. Hegde is the first Vice-Chancellor of a university to face a Lokayukta probe. In the past, retired judges had held roving inquiries into the affairs of universities. One of them was in the early Seventies by the Late Justice K.R.Gopivallabha Iyengar into the affairs of the Bangalore University.

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