A professor from Visvesvaraya Technological University was arrested on Wednesday night by the Central Crime Branch on charges of alleged irregularities to the tune of Rs 6.8 crore. Professor Yoganand, a Professor of Machine Design in the Aeronautical Engineering branch of at the postgraduate centre in Kalburgi, has been booked for cheating and will be produced before a magistrate on Thursday. He has been remanded to 14 days of judicial custody.
According to police sources, the former Vice Chancellor of VTU, Maheshappa, who was fired by Governor Vajubhai Vala for massive irregularities amounting to crores of rupees, is also suspected to have been involved in this latest scam.
“The current Registrar, Jagannath Reddy had registered a complaint after an internal committee had found discrepancies in the purchase of equipment. We have registered an FIR against Maheshappa and the university’s former treasurer KV Prakash as well and are investigating the matter,” police said.
The internal committee probing the irregularities had found that a tender was called for supplying the equipment to all colleges under VTU. However, the equipment, which was brought was allegedly kept in Davangere.
“Yoganand had signed a letter saying the equipment has been disbursed to all colleges. When the registrar received multiple complaints about alleged irregularities, the committee was set up to investigate. We found a scam of Rs 6.8 crore,” a VTU source said.
Previous allegations against the former VC of VTU, Dr Maheshappa included irregularities in the recruitment of 168 teaching and non-teaching staff and depletion of corpus fund of Rs 541 crore. He had, however, denied them all. Dr Maheshappa, was appointed as Vice-Chancellor on July 2, 2010, for a period of three years and his term was extended in June 2014 till June 30, 2016.
In July this year, the university’s management realized that 64 teachers of the 168 hired during the tenure of Maheshappa, were not up to the mark. A probe conducted by the internal committee had revealed that most of them had exaggerated their educational qualifications or lied about their caste to land a job.
VTU had sent notices to the 64 professors, assistant professors and associate professors. The violations discovered by the internal committee point to a financial consideration for the appointments, which is currently being probed, sources revealed.