GUWAHATI: A three-member committee constituted by the Assam governor has initiated a probe into allegations of various financial, administrative and educational irregularities in Assam Agricultural University.
The members of the probe panel include Dr Nirmal Kumar Choudhury, former vice chancellor of Gauhati University, Mukesh Sahay, former Assam director general of police, and PWD (housing) chief engineer, JK Sarma.
“The committee has been formed only recently and we have started the probe into the allegations of irregularities in AAU. So far, we have managed to collect few papers and documents from the university officials,” Sahay, one of the committee members, told The Shillong Times on Thursday.
It may be mentioned that former Assam Governor and the then AAU chancellor, P.B. Acharya, had instituted a probe back in 2014 following complaints by seven distinguished citizens, of corruption and irregularities in the university.
The incumbent AAU vice chancellor, KM Buzarbaruah, under whose term the allegations of corruption and irregularities (till 2014) have been made, had then challenged the probe by Acharya, seeking an intervention by Gauhati High Court, which had thereafter issued a stay order.
Buzarbaruah, who is serving his second term as VC in AAU, is currently out of station and not available for comment.
It may noted that a PIL was filed in Gauhati High Court in 2014 by former MLA, Ajoy Dutta and three other distinguished citizens, demanding a CBI probe against irregularities and corruption during Buzarbaruah’s term.
But the High Court dismissed the petition and directed them to approach the governor, who is the chancellor of the university.
The court quashed the prayer by petitioners and instead passed an order in August this year which facilitated the governor to institute a probe into allegations of irregularities in the university if he wished to have an investigation on the basis of the AAU’s rules.
The court had referring to AAU rules directed that under special circumstances, the chancellor could direct a probe into financial, administrative and educational irregularities in the university. Thereafter, the four petitioners led by the former MLA submitted a memorandum to Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi, where they included additional allegations of irregularities from 2014 till date.
Among the additional allegations cited in the memorandum against the VC include flouting of UGC rules and regulations to promote six associate professors; taking recourse to fraudulent means to obtain an award instituted by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research; inaction against an official alleged in a corruption (Rs 57 lakh) case; making illegal appointments to the posts of teachers and scientists and illegally promoting several employees.
