Even as Vigilance Bureau took possession of all relevant records to start an inquiry into controversial selection of an assistant professor of Hindi at Kurukshetra University, Vice-Chancellor DDS Sandhu on Tuesday maintained that while the matter is sub judice, giving 22 marks out of 20 in interview was an only inadvertent error.
Talking to mediapersons at the function to felicitate old students for achievement in UPSC examination, the Vice-Chancellor, said that the error occurred due to wrong filling of marks in columns of domain knowledge and interview in the second page of the selection sheet, as these heads were not mentioned at the top.
He claimed that 22 marks out of total of 25 were meant to be mentioned in the column of domain knowledge and 18 marks out of total 20 marks were to be mentioned in the column of interview. However, these were inter-changed in the columns, inadvertently.
Haryana Government had marked an inquiry to State Vigilance Bureau into the controversial selection conducted by a selection committee headed by Vice-Chancellor DDS Sandhu in September 2012, on complaint of Ajayab Singh, who was also a candidate for the post and had appeared for the interview.
In all, 151 candidates appeared before the selection committee for interviews, in which Vandana Sharma was selected. Singh had alleged irregularities in interviews, in which the selected candidate was awarded 22 marks out of 20.
The Vice Chancellor said that the error was first detected by the internal Auditor of the university soon after the selection. After getting the clarification, the internal auditor sent its report to the Director, local Audit at Chandigarh, and got it approved, subject to the outcome of High Court.
It was in the month of February 2013, Ajayab Singh got the copy of the selection sheet and filed a petition in the Punjab and Haryana
High Court. The University has already filed its reply in the High Court as per mentioned above.