Hours before he was to retire from service, the first Vice-Chancellor of Indian Maritime University, P. Vijayan, was removed from service, censured and ordered to pay several lakhs of rupees for amassing disproportionate assets, lying about his educational qualifications, and causing loss to the university. Vijayan, who was first searched by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2011, retired on April 30.
He was serving as Director of the Chennai campus of the IMU after he was removed as the Vice-Chancellor of the IMU in 2014.
Former Vice-Chancellor P. Vijayan.
The Executive Council of the IMU said in an order dated April 26 that Vijayan was being imposed the “penalty of ‘Removal of Service’ from the post of Director” of the Chennai campus under Rule 12 of the IMU Rules 2008.
Action against Vijayan comes on the prodding of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and the Shipping Ministry, which were alerted to the long absence of any action against the founding V-C of the IMU, accused of a host of misdeeds and also chargesheeted by the CBI in a disproportionate assets case.
“At least some action has happened. It has been seven long years after he was raided by the CBI, and a few hours before his retirement,” a senior official said.
Several charges
The IMU Executive Council said Vijayan “had failed to report the details of a large number of transactions of sale and purchase of immovable properties and huge borrowings done by him and his spouse between 1.03.1995 and 13.1.2011” to the authorities. He has also been held guilty of violating rules governing private trade, investments, lending and borrowings, as well as transactions related to valuable moveable and immoveable property.
For all those charges, while he was removed from office, Vijayan also faced other punishments for several acts of omission and commission while he was the V-C of the IMU.
In its meeting on June 26, 2014, the IMU Executive Council decided to also proceed against Vijayan for “major penalty on imputations of misconduct about affiliations to the University.”
In that meeting, it was found that he had caused a loss of ₹20.19 crore to IMU by his action of “not collecting affiliation fees” from colleges that had been affiliated to the IMU. The Executive Council, however, agreed that the “alleged loss of ₹20.19 crore does not stand to reason.” It went on to say that he has caused a loss of ₹ 8 lakh that must be recovered.
The Executive Council also directed the administration to recover ₹22.65 lakh from Vijayan for unauthorised spending on official car and other facilities while he was the Director of the IMU’s Chennai campus.
The Executive Council also issued a “censure,” a minor penalty, to Vijayan, for making “false and exaggerated claims” about his qualifications to the search committee that recommended him to the post of Vice-Chancellor of the IMU.
