The government today set up a three-member fact finding committee to inquire into the allegations of financial and administrative irregularities against Viswa Bharati Vice Chancellor Sushanta Dattagupta.
The development comes amid growing unrest in the varsity campus and protest by a section of students, staff and faculty demanding his removal.
The committee would comprise former judge of Allahabad High Court Sakharam Singh Yadav, chairman of Sri Aurobindo Institute of Indian Culture (Shillong) B B Dutta and professor of South Asian Archaeology of Cambridge University Dilip Chakrabarti.
It has been asked to submit its report by March 31. The vice chancellor has been asked to nominate an officer not below the rank of deputy registrar to act as coordinator for providing documents in connection with the inquiry.
Officials in the HRD Ministry said the VC could as well be asked to go on leave pending completion of the probe if the committee so desires.
Citing a recent case, they said IGNOU VC M Aslam was told to proceed on leave last November when a one-man committee was set up to inquire similar allegations against him.
Among several irregularities, Dattagupta has been accused of appointing a Controller of Examinations despite having no powers to do so and sanctioning key posts in violation of the Visva Bharati Act.
"The academic atmosphere has been thoroughly jeopardised and the Vice-Chancellor is functioning in an autocratic manner," Congress MP Pradeep Bhattacharya had said in Rajya Sabha during a discussion in the Winter Session.
Recently, Lok Sabha MP from West Bengal S S Ahluwalia had also demanded an inquiry into the allegations against the VC.
Referring to a sexual harassment case against him when he was the director of S N Bose National Center for Basic Sciences, Ahluwalia demanded that the HRD ministry should revisit the ministerial report submitted on his sexual harassment case to the then HRD Minister Kapil Sibal and criminal proceedings should be started against him immediately.
