Journalism of Courage
President Ram Nath Kovind is learnt to have approved the sacking of the Vice-Chancellor (V-C) of Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal (HNBG) University, Jawahar Lal Kaul, for alleged administrative irregularities. The HRD Ministry is expected to issue formal orders announcing his removal this week.
Kaul will be the third central university head — after Sushanta Dattagupta of Visva-Bharati University and Chandra Krishnamurthy of Pondicherry University — to be dismissed by the incumbent government.
However, this is the first instance of the NDA-II government going after its own appointee in a central university. Kaul was appointed in November 2014, when Smriti Irani was HRD Minister. He has a little less than two years left in office.
While the President’s press secretary, Ashok Malik, did not comment on the matter, Higher Education Secretary K K Sharma did not respond to calls and an SMS sent by this reporter on Friday evening. Kaul was unavailable for comment.
As first reported by The Indian Express on November 21, HRD Ministry had forwarded a proposal to sack Kaul and justified it on two counts. First, he allegedly allowed colleges to increase intake in some courses to 200 seats, even though university rules permit only 60 seats in each programme and 80 in exceptional cases. Second, he took a decision to charge a college affiliation fee lower than the prescribed amount.
Kaul was served a show cause notice in February this year based on conclusions of a two-member fact-finding committee set up to probe complaints from the Central Vigilance Commission last year, alleging administrative mismanagement. He was given three weeks to present his defence regarding five allegations, including the charge of approving backdated affiliation to a few teacher training institutes. The notice also accused him of allowing the university to declare examination results of some private institutes when the status of their affiliation to the university was under the scanner.
Kaul’s defence against allegations of allowing colleges to increase seats above the permitted limit and undercharging affiliation fee was found unsatisfactory by the ministry and, hence, shown as grounds for sacking.
The Central Universities Act of 2009, which covers 16 central universities set up by the UPA government, empowers the HRD Ministry to fire V-Cs on grounds of incapacity, misconduct or violation of statutory provisions. HNBG University is covered under this law and the show cause notice was issued under Section 2(5) of the Act.
