Taking strong exception to IIT-Kharagpur moving the Delhi High Court — challenging Central Vigilance Commission’s (CVC) jurisdiction over the ‘autonomous’ institute — Union HRD Ministry on Thursday summoned its top brass to seek an explanation.
The Ministry’s summonses follow the CVC’s query on the basis of The Pioneer’s report, about grounds on which IIT- Kharagpur took the ‘misleading’ stand.
Sources said the CVC has directed the HRD Ministry to provide a copy of the affidavit filed by IIT. CVC drew the Ministry’s attention to the news report titled ‘IIT-Kgp takes CVC head on’, published in The Pioneer on March 22, and asked if the Ministry was consulted by the institute before filing such an affidavit.
According to Ministry sources, IIT-Kharagpur director-officiating Prof Shankar Kumar Some and Registrar Tapan Kumar Ghosal, under whose name the affidavit is sworn, were summoned by the Ministry for their clarification.
Prof Some had told The Pioneer earlier that he was clueless about such an affidavit.
IIT-Kharagpur, a public-funded institute established by an Act of Parliament, in an affidavit on March 21, 2013, stated that it does not fall under the purview of the CVC. “It is pertinent to mention that CVC does not have jurisdiction over the answering respondent (IIT-Kharagpur), being an autonomous institute does not fall within any of the categories mentioned in the CVC’s provision,” it states in its affidavit in the Delhi High Court.
The affidavit was a precursor to the institute’s board of governors (BoG) meet a couple of days later to respond to the CVC’s direction to HRD Ministry to initiate major penalty proceedings against three professors — IIT-Patna director Prof AK Bhowmick, IIT-Kharagpur dean and director-select Prof PP Chakraborty and retired Prof RN Banerjee — indicted in the Rs 40-crore CoalNet scam.
“Investigations are on and the Ministry may ask the institute to fix responsibility so action can be initiated. Such carelessness and misleading the judiciary for some vested interest is unpardonable at least for a famous institute. This is disastrous,” said a top HRD Ministry official.
According to CVC Act 2003, the function and powers of the commission is to exercise superintendence over the vigilance administration of the various ministries of Central Government or corporations established by or under any Central Act, Government companies, societies and local authorities owned or controlled by that Government.