Uncertainty continues over IIT-D Director’s resignation

Shevgaonkar continues to attend work as the government is yet to take a decision on either accepting or rejecting it.

More than a month after he submitted his resignation, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi’s director Raghunath K. Shevgaonkar, continues to attend work as the government is yet to take a decision on either accepting or rejecting it.

“In his resignation, he had asked to be relieved on January 1. But he has not requested for any notice period and as things stand, he will continue as director until the President decides or his term expires, whichever is earlier,” an HRD official said. After his term expires in 2016 or he is relieved, he is expected to be repatriated to IITB. Another senior official clarified that no action is being contemplated on the Mauritius issue as the director has not been found guilty of any impropriety so far.

IITD Chairman VP Bhatkar told this paper that he had tried to convince Mr. Shevgaonkar to withdraw his resignation. “We requested him to reconsider when he put in his papers. He didn’t say anything. He just smiled,” he told

The Hindu .

On December 22, Mr. Shevgaonkar had submitted his resignation to the IIT’s Board of Governors, which was forwarded through the Human Resource Development Ministry to President Pranab Mukherjee who holds the post of Visitor to IITD. Mr. Mukherjee has neither accepted nor rejected his resignation yet, official sources said.

The Director resigned a month after the HRD Ministry asked him to explain his role in the International Institute of Technology Research Academy (IITRA) in Mauritius, which was set up with Indian collaboration in 2013. When he resigned, the Ministry had clarified that neither did it pressurise him to pay back wages to BJP leader and former IITD teacher Subramanian Swamy nor did it ask him to allow a private cricket academy to be started on campus.

Mr. Shevgaonkar, an electrical engineering scientist on lien from IIT Bombay, has been attending work ever since he returned from leave on January 11. “When we asked him what’s happening, he said that he has put in his papers and now it is up to the government,” a senior IITD professor told this paper. The director has refused to speak to the press.

Currently, IITs in Bhubaneswar and Patna have acting heads and the director of IIT Ropar is on extension as the ministry is yet to appoint new directors for these institutes.