Punjab Vigilance Bureau on Monday arrested Rajnesh Arora, former Vice Chancellor of IK Gujral Punjab Technical University (PTU) for committing major financial irregularities and administrative lapses during his tenure.
The special court, Jalandhar has sent him to four days vigilance custody for further interrogation, said an official spokesperson of the Vigilance Bureau.
He said that an enquiry was conducted by SS Dhillon, IAS (retd.) regarding irregularities committed by Arora during the year 2012-13 and the State Technical Education Department after taking legal opinion had sent this inquiry report to the Bureau for
further action.
On the basis of this report, the VB has registered a case against Arora and others under section 409,120-B of IPC and 13(1)(d) read with 13(2) of Prevention of Corruption Act at VB police station, Jalandhar and taken up for further
investigations.
During the investigation, it has been found that Arora appointed six coordinators and facilitators arbitrarily without publishing any advertisement and paid more than `2.73 crore and over `6.53 crore to six C&Fs during the years 2012-13 and 2013-14 respectively.
After taking note of this matter, the Board of Governors had asked the VC to make all appointments only after adopting transparent procedure but he had appointed 12 C&Fs for university. During this recruitment process, he had ignored the recommendations of the selection committee and recruitment was made on the basis of email received from a private firm, on the email ID of Director in-charge during that period, the spokesman said.
He informed that Arora not only violated the laid down rules of the PTU but rather ignored those genuine firms who were fulfilling the requisite conditions of the advertisement made by University.
Out of the four appointment cases, the selection of firms was done without the recommendation made by the selection committee and one firm was appointed from the waiting list.
Giving the details of irregularities in the recruitment, the spokesperson said that recruitment of Nachatter Singh, Advisor (deputation) and RP Bhardwaj, Director (contract) were made without publishing any advertisement and did not send any circular to any other University or institution.
Apart from this, the rules were not followed while appointing Vishwadeep Assistant Registrar (Adhoc), Marginder Singh Bedi, Assistant Training and Placement Officer and Sumeer Sharma, Assistant Director/ Cultural activities.
The spokesperson informed that in connivance with each other, Arora and private company, NETiit has opened a camp office at Delhi and wasted more than `1.65 crore arbitrarily.
He also allowed one Dharinder Tayal to charge higher fees in the Director learning Center established at Chandigarh vis-a-vis other institutions which were run by this University and financially benefitted the Anovous Institute of Clinical Research, the spokesman said.
During investigation it has also been found that Arora had made exchange of huge amount of money without following the financial rules. He allowed payment to a private company, NETiit, about `25 crores as counselling fees, without following financial rules, said he.
The spokesperson added that during the ongoing investigation in this case the role of other officials/employees would also be investigated.