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New Delhi: Two inquiry committees have concluded that 28 teachers of the Uttarakhand Sanskrit University were hired “fraudulently” following a process that has allegedly breached University Grants Commission guidelines on transparence and impartiality.
Times of India has reported that the inquiry committees were tasked with looking into hirings from 2010 and 2016 by then vice-chancellors Sudha Rani Pandey and Peeyush Kant Dixit.
Amidst controversy over these appointments, in 2015, the university’s then vice-chancellor Mahavir Agarwal was embroiled in trouble over allegations of having obtained fake degrees and certificates. An administrative post applicant who had been rejected wrote to the President, Prime Minister, then Union human resource development minister and others, alleging that his degrees were fake. Agarwal denied the charges, Times of India then reported.
In 2017, the Uttarakhand governor, the de facto chancellor of the university, stopped it from accessing state grants to appoint teachers.
In February this year, TOI had reported that half of the teaching posts in the university are vacant, affecting smooth operations and classes.
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The inquiry committees were set up in 2013 and 2017; both were headed by the Garhwal commissioner.
The committees’ reports note that candidates were declared qualified or unqualified for interviews, and that this goes against UGC rules.
The committee has also recommended that the appointment of the 28 teachers be cancelled.
The university has not got the official reports filed by the committees yet.
Two other committees, headed by Purushottam Agrawal and V.K. Bansal, had earlier found that the appointment of only one professor was “irregular”.