The Madras High Court on Monday directed the State government to unearth the names of Coimbatore Government College of Technology staff and their family members reportedly involved in bagging the tenders floated by the institution.
Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy directed Higher Education Secretary to disclose to the court, by August 9, the relationship between the employees of the college and those who had been awarded the tenders.
Ordering that the Secretary should also explain how the matter had escaped the attention of the government, the court made it clear that immediate remedial measures should also be taken if anything remiss was discovered during the inquiry.
PIL petition
The interim orders were passed on a public interest litigation petition filed by R. Mahalingam of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last year. The petitioner had claimed that two employees of the college had floated a few companies in the names of their family members and bagged college contracts.
Claiming that some of the bids had been submitted using college computers, the petitioner insisted upon a Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC) inquiry to unravel the truth. He feared that the malaise might be deep rooted than what appeared to the eye.
