V-C suspended faculty for fraud to hide scale of irregularities and his own inaction: JNUTA

New Delhi: The JNUTA on Monday claimed that the suspension of a faculty member on charges of financial embezzlement of over Rs 88 lakh was "orchestrated" by the vice-chancellor to hide his own "inaction" and the true scale of financial irregularities — which the teachers' association claims could be much higher.

In an emergency meeting of JNU's Executive Council (EC) held earlier, a decision was taken to suspend and initiate criminal proceedings against a professor and some staff for "alleged misappropriation of funds", the Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers' Association claimed in a statement.

"Both fraud and embezzlement are serious violations of JNU rules, yet the entire exercise, that was clearly orchestrated in the EC by the vice chancellor and whose term ended eight months ago, was nothing but an attempt to hide his own inaction and the true scale of financial irregularities caused by the administration's wanton mis-management of public funds over the last five years," the statement read, adding that the probe in the matter was entrusted to the CVC and the police just so that the inquiry within the varsity could be scuttled.

"The EC has done so without even examining whether such a matter falls within the CVC's domain. There is also no legal justification for the EC treating a criminal complaint and a departmental inquiry as alternatives to each other," they said.

An immediate reaction was not available from the university.

Elaborating further, they said there was no disciplinary enquiry ordered against the accused persons despite the recommendations of the Fact-Finding Committee (FFC) constituted to investigate the matter.

The teachers' body also said the signs of a "cover up" are evident in the fact that even as criminal cases are to be made out against identified JNU employees, there is no process of identifying all the fraudulent vendor companies which have allegedly received payments against forged bills and need to be criminally prosecuted.

They also claimed that no member of the JNU EC was allowed to see even a single page of the Fact-Finding Committee Report.

The teachers also said that university's finance officers are appointed from the Indian Audit and Accounts Services but from 2017 till date, the people serving as finance officers have no experience or expertise on the matter.

They also alleged that the finance officer appointed in 2019 was suddenly relieved from the job on October 5 despite having a tenure of five years.