Anna Uni VC Surappa moves Madras HC against corruption probe by state govt

MK Surappa, the Vice-Chancellor of Anna University, moved the Madras High Court seeking to quash the inquiry initiated against him by the Tamil Nadu government. The state government set up an inquiry committee headed by retired judge of Madras High Court P Kalaiyarasan to probe the allegations of corruption against MK Surappa.

Justice S Vaidyanathan will hear the plea on Saturday, treating it as an urgent matter, as per reports. Surappa’s petition to the court stated that the state government had, in November, constituted the inquiry committee since the government was not happy that he was not toeing the line.

He further claimed that the notification of an inquiry committee is an abuse of process of law since the complainants are non-existent. In his petition, he alleged that the commission was set up not to inquire into the complaint, but to find out if any complaint can be made against him and harass him.

Calling the notification of the inquiry commission ‘vindictive’, Surappa said that it was set up to tarnish his image since he has been taking steps to improve the governance of the university. He added that he is being punished by being subjected to an inquiry since he did not toe the line of the Principal Secretary of the Department of Higher Education.

The row between the state government of Tamil Nadu and MK Surappa has been brewing for over a year. Months ago, MK Surappa wrote a letter directly to the Union Government, requesting it to retain the offer of Institute of Eminence (IoE) tag for Anna University. In his letter, he stated that the university is internally capable of generating the funds sought by the Union Government to confer the IoE tag and hence does not need the support of the state government.

The state government was delaying giving commitment assuring monetary support to Anna University on the IoE issue, since it alleged that there was no clarity on the reservation policy to be followed by Anna University after receiving the tag. Tamil Nadu follows a 69% reservation policy in its educational institutions and for work, while the central norm is 49.5%. The act of Surappa writing directly to the Union Government irked the state government, after which it set up an inquiry committee to probe the complaints allegedly received against the Vice Chancellor. The term of the committee was recently extended by three months.