Panel submits report to govt on allegations against VC

Nagpur: The panel led by deputy secretary of higher education Ajay Bawiskar submitted its probe report regarding allegations against Nagpur University vice-chancellor Subhash Chaudhari for appointing agencies like MKCL and awarding various contracts worth crores without floating tenders in gross violation of norms.
The report was handed over to Maharashtra higher education minister Chandrakant Dada Patil last week by Bawiskar. After conducting a meeting of NU VC, pro-VC Sanjay Dudhe, MLCs – Pravin Datke and Abhijit Wanjari, on August 28, the minister ordered immediate ouster of MKCL for its poor services and miserable failure to declare students results for over five months.
The minister had also taken inputs from Management Council member Vishnu Changde and former Senate members – Manmohan Bajpayee and Shivani Dani. A series of TOI reports exposing MKCL’s retention by the VC flouting norms and its failure to declare the results in time were submitted to the minister. All these members had raised the MKCL’s issue during Senate meetings after TOI brought the issue to fore.
In the same meeting, Patil had declared that a high-level panel led by a person of secretary’s rank would probe the entire allegations against MKCL and VC. Accordingly, Bawiskar was appointed to investigate the allegations. He was in the city from September 16 and 17 and met with Chaudhari, Dudhe and registrar Raju Hiwase. The minister is likely to take the decision on report after festival seson.
Though Patil was busy and Bawiskar refused to pick up TOI’s calls, sources from the higher education department said that the minister may take the decision next week after the festivities would be over.
Another panel led by joint director of higher education Sanjay Thakre had already conducted a parallel inquiry into MKCL’s affairs and had submitted its report to the government.
Bajpayee, who had consistently opposed MKCL’s allegedly illegal re-entry into NU, informed that they had submitted many documents to Bawiskar, which would act as concrete proofs against the NU top brass. “We demand that the government should now appoint an expert’s panel to probe the host of complaints against VC and team for allegedly awarding contracts worth crores to agencies like MKCL, despite strong opposition from the Senate and Management Council members,” he said.
He hoped that the guilty would be punished after a fair probe and a new administration that will accommodate all the stakeholders would take charge at the university in its 100th anniversary.
Other members said the government should take urgent steps against the VC and team as he suppressed democratic voices of statutory members. “The VC dissolved the Senate meeting abruptly without waiting for the members to escape questioning by them on contentious issues like MKCL’s contract, harassment of PhD students, inordinate delay in declaration of first semester results and others,” they said.