Former Periyar University VC and Controller booked on corruption charges

An inquiry by the DVAC revealed that as many as 154 teachers were recruited during the term of Swaminathan from 2014 to 2017 in the university.

The malpractice began to unfold when K Angamuthu, the university’s registrar between 2012 and 2015 committed suicide by consuming poison on 18 December, 2017 after he came under the police scanner over some missing documents on recruitments.

In 2018, K Angamuthu’s wife P Vijayalakshmi from Erode filed a complaint with DVAC in Chennai flagging the issue of irregularities in recruitments based on a suicide note written by her husband.

Therefore, the DVAC sleuths held an inquiry into the recruitments and found that ineligible candidates were recruited in violation of UGC norms to both teaching and non teaching positions. It then came to light that the minute’s register of the selection committee with details of 46 teaching staff had disappeared mysteriously.

In another offence, the investigative agency booked the then Controller of Examinations S Leela, who in connivance with the VC had granted permission to a Chennai based private firm to declare exam results at an expense of Rs 3.26 crore without obtaining any approval from the finance committee of the higher education department.

Irregularities were also unearthed in allowing three colleges without adequate infrastructure facilities to open new courses and granting affiliation to five colleges in the Salem region.  

In connection with these above offences, the DVAC had booked former VC, former Controller of Examinations S Leela and the then Registrar K Angamuthu, who is no more, under various sections of Prevention of Corruption Act. Further inquiry is underway.