As a fallout of the ghost faculty scam in affiliated colleges, the syndicate of Anna University, the premier varsity for technical education in Chennai, has removed its Registrar, Director for Affiliation and other officials, consequent to a vigilance case registered against them.
In August last year, a detailed inquiry by the university removed the veil on the scandal, revealing that as many as 676 teachers were working in multiple engineering colleges at the same time as full-time faculty members. This followed a detailed analysis of the database of 52,000 teachers. While one person had worked in 22 colleges, 20 were on the payroll of 10 institutions. All the ghost faculty have been blacklisted.
This followed an expose by the anti-corruption NGO Arappor Iyakkam in July last year that 353 teachers were working in multiple engineering colleges in 2023-24 and demanded action. The three-member panel headed by T Abraham, Commissioner, Directorate of Technical Education, found that affiliated colleges had filled nearly 2,000 faculty positions in 2023-24 with fake appointments. Furthermore,
Though more than 200 colleges were found involved in the racket, the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption has registered a case only against Vice Chancellor R Velraj, Registrar J Prakash, Affiliation Director VR Giri Dev and 8 others in connection with the ghost faculty scandal. While the State Government has suspended Velraj, on the day of his retirement from service as professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department, Governor RN Ravi, also Chancellor of the varsity, has revoked it.
On Saturday, the varsity syndicate, convened to discuss the further course of action following the Governor revoking the suspension of Velraj and denying permission to prosecute him, decided to relieve all the officials named in the Vigilance case . University sources said, “The syndicate has decided to relieve all officials named by DVAC in the case from all responsibilities.”
Now, the Higher Education Department is in the process of finding a replacement for the post of Registrar.