RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, Nov.29: Are the credentials of the vice-chancellors of Jharkhand properly scanned before their appointment or their scanning will take place only when some of them will be caught like vice-chancellors of universities in Bihar?
The question arose after the name of Chaibasa (Jharkhand) based Kolhan University vice-chancellor Gangadhar Panda surfaced in the degree scam along with another professor Rajneesh Kumar Shukla after the special investigation team (SIT) of Yogi Adityanath ruled Uttar Pradesh in the fake degree scam involving the prime minister’s parliamentary constituency, Varanasi based Sampurnanand Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya.
According to the notification of the Governor’s Secretariat, issued by the Principal Secretary to Chancellor Shailesh Kumar Singh on May 27 last year,’the posting…shall be subject to vigilance clearance from the appropriate authority’. According to sources, a vigilance clearance takes time and Panda joined Kolhan University as VC on May 28 itself without getting any vigilance clearance. “Panda would not have got the vigilance clearance had the authority sought vigilance clearance as he was facing a probe in UP,” sources said.
The Yogi Adityanath government had ordered a probe when it was revealed that a large number of successful candidates of the government job had obtained fake degrees and most of these were released from Sampurnanand Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya that comes under the UP government.
The report, running over 100 pages was submitted on November 18, 2020. The SIT said there were whosoever the registrars, exam controllers were, and system managers of Sampurnanand Sanskrit University between 2004 to 2014 had committed lapses and dereliction of duty.
The report had named Panda and Shukla among nine registrars/exam controllers, deputy registrars, and assistant registrars at the university and said that they had not performed their duties in a proper manner. “As a result, the verification department carried out its work fraudulently and records of the exam department were tampered with at a large scale,” the report reads. Panda held the post of registrar between February 11, 2009 and August 6, 2010.
In March this year, the UP government decided to initiate action against those named in the report under the UP Government Servant (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1999. The rule prescribed penalties like withholding increments, dismissal from service and also disqualifying a person from future employment.
Notably, two vice-chancellors (VCs) of Bihar were under the charge of corruption. They include S.P.Singh of Lalit Narayan Mithila University, Darbhanga, and Rajendra Prasad of Bodh Gaya-based Magadh University. The incident has raised a big question regarding the level of integrity in the field of higher education.
Repeated attempts to contact Shailesh Kumar Singh, principal secretary to Jharkhand’s chancellor, Ramesh Bias, to know about the matter failed.
A senior associate professor of the state said that vigilance inquiry before the appointment of vice-chancellors is under the scanner. “If vigilance inquiry had been done, a person like Panda would have not become vice-chancellor as everyone close to higher education knows that Panda was registrar at Sampurnanand Sanskrit University when the degree scam took place there,” he said.
