HRD reply to RTI query: Visitorial Inquiry against Jamia V-C over irregularities
Prof Talat Ahmad, Vice Chancellor of Jamia Milia Islamia University. (Express photo by Oinam Anand/File) Prof Talat Ahmad, Vice Chancellor of Jamia Milia Islamia University. (Express photo by Oinam Anand/File)
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), in reply to an RTI query, said it has instituted a Visitorial Inquiry against Jamia Millia Islamia Vice-Chancellor Talat Ahmad for alleged administrative and financial irregularities.
Among other things, the V-C is under scanner for allegedly spending Rs 26 lakh on hosting a team from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) during their visit in 2015.
In response to an RTI filed by professor Obaid Siddiqui, the MHRD said, “The Ministry requested UGC to constitute a Visitorial Inquiry through UGC as per orders of the President of India in his capacity as the Visitor… Accordingly, the UGC has constituted a committee for Visitorial Inquiry, which has to submit a report by February 28, 2018.”
Siddiqui had approached the Delhi High Court over issues such as alleged wasteful expenditure on the NAAC visit, arbitrary introduction of supernumerary quota in admissions for wards of university staff and misuse of government accommodation.
The court, in its judgment on February 29, had asked the HRD Ministry and UGC to forward Siddiqui’s complaint to the President in his capacity as Visitor.
They had sought Ahmad’s response but, after finding some aspects “unsatisfactory”, suggested a Visitorial Inquiry.
Speaking to The Sunday Express, Ahmad said, “I have already written my response to these allegations. Whenever they (the committee) ask me for it, I will send it to them. I have not been asked to depose before them yet. These complaints are not new, and I have provided all justification earlier too. The complainant in this case is a professor who has been suspended because of pending enquiries against him.”
Siddiqui, on the other hand, has written to HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar about his grievances: “I am the whistleblower/complainant but the Inquiry Committee constituted by the UGC has not contacted me once to know my side of the story… In case of an Inquiry against a Vice-Chancellor or a government servant, the charged officer has either been suspended or sent on forced leave. I am curious to know why this step has not been taken by the UGC in case of Professor Ahmad. He is still working as Vice-Chancellor and influencing witnesses and tampering with documents.”
Siddiqui, in his complaint filed with the HRD Ministry in August 2014 and July 2015, had mentioned the alleged abolition of the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe quota in faculty and staff employment, “arbitrary” introduction of a supernumerary quota, and the absence of a regular registrar and finance officer in the university, among other issues. He had also alleged that “the functioning of a central university has been monopolised by its officers to the detriment of legal and administrative sobriety”.
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