Chennai: On Thursday, Tamil Nadu’s government informed the Madras High Court that the state Governor alone would be responsible for the case involving former Anna University Vice-Chancellor M K Surappa, who is facing corruption and other charges.
According to Attorney-General R Shanmugasundaram, only the Governor, who is also the Chancellor of all the universities in the state, has the authority to deal with the issue.
During the further hearing of Surappa’s writ petition, he said this. The matter was adjourned until January 3 after the judge recorded the submission.
In November last year, the then AIADMK government appointed a commission of inquiry headed by Justice P Kalaiarasan, a retired judge of the High Court, to investigate allegations of bribery, corruption, malpractices, financial irregularities, and irregular appointments against Surappa.
Aggrieved, he had filed the present petition denying all the charges alleged against him. He claimed he had undertaken major development works in the interest of the premier technical varsity, ever since he had assumed office in April 2018.
His opposition to the state government’s decision to pass all engineering students without conducting arrear examinations due to Covid-19 and the efforts taken by him to obtain an Institute of Eminence (IoE) status for the university, had triggered the confrontation.
He also stated he had refused to part with university funds for purchasing decorative items at the offices of the then Higher Education Minister and the Secretary. All this had ended in him drawing the ire of the previous government, he had added
When the matter came up in February this year, Justice S Vaidyanathan had restrained the government from taking any action against the academic.
Meanwhile, the Commission had submitted its findings in a report to the State government.
