The Tamil Nadu Federation of Universities Faculty Associations (TANFUFA) has urged the Governor and Chancellor and the State Government to remove Vice-Chancellor of Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, from the office immediately for the “arbitrariness and utter disregard for procedures and norms and gross irregularities in faculty appointments”. It also demanded criminal proceedings against him.
V. Natarajan, secretary of TANFUFA, told presspersons here recently that there were serious lapses in the whole process.
The federation also wanted a high-level committee headed by a sitting Judge to go into the whole process of faculty appointment and nullify all appointments made in violation of the established norms.
Mr. Natarajan said the advertisement that called for teaching posts did not adhere to the prescribed norms on qualification and experience. There was blatant violation of the 200-point reservation norms in the allocation of the positions to various departments.
The scrutiny committee that screened the applications was neither competent in dealing with the subject, nor appropriate to the disciplines, which resulted in the miscalculation of the API score and boosting of the weightage of certain non-qualified persons.
“Peculiarly, out of the many southern universities, most of the experts were drawn from only Bharathidasan and Alagappa Universities where the Vice-Chancellor had served previously.”
The Governor nominee Ramasamy, Vice-Chancellor, TNAU, was arbitrarily removed from the selection committee at the last moment and Manimekalai, a junior professor from Alagappa University was inducted, Mr. Natarajan alleged, and wanted to know whether it was done with the consent of the Chancellor (the Governor).
Manonmaniam Sundaranar University too was recently in the news for the same reasons. Mr. Natarajan urged the Chancellor to invoke the visitation clause of Bharathiar and Manonmaniam Sundaranar Universities and order an inquiry forthwith. He also demanded the Chancellor to cancel the entire Syndicate proceedings of both the universities that ratified the illegal appointments and declare them as null and void.
