NIT Hamirpur director terminated for alleged irregularities

SHIMLA: For the complaints of alleged irregularities at National Institute of Technology (NIT) Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh, the Union Ministry of Education-Department of Higher Education terminated the services of its Director Professor Vinod Yadava with immediate effect and in place Professor Lalit Awasthi, Director of Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar has been given additional charge of NIT Hamirpur till further orders.
Notification issued by the Union Ministry of Education on Saturday stated that a Committee was constituted on July 13 this year to inquire into the state of affairs of the NIT Hamirpur and to hold inquiries in various complaints received against the functioning of institute.
“The report of the said Committee, which found that there is certainly prima facie case against the Director of the Institute, has been accepted by the Competent Authority in accordance with the provisions of the NITSER Act, 2007,” it added.
Notification said that in exercise of the powers conferred by section 17(1) of the NITSER Act, 2007 and Statue 17(1) and (2) of the first Statues as further referred in section 17 (1) of the NITSER Act, 2007, the Visitor (President of India), also being the appointing authority, has approved for termination of services of Professor Vinod Yadava from the post of Director, NIT Hamirpur with immediate effect.
Professor Vinod Yadava will be provided sum equivalent to amount of his basic pay for three months in lieu of the three months notice in accordance with the provisions under para-13 of the Contract of Service executed between Professor Vinod Yadava and the Chairperson of Board of Governors, NIT Hamirpur on behalf of central government.
Professor Vinod Yadava had joined NIT Hamirpur as its Director on March 22, 2018 on deputation from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh where he was Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He said appointed as Director for a term of five years purely on tenure or basis or till the attainment of the age of 70 years or until further orders, whichever occurs earlier.
Issue of alleged irregularities especially in the appointments of teaching staff at NIT Hamirpur was first raised by the Congress MLA from Sujapur Rajender Rana last year. It was Rana who had made a written complaint to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal and Professor C Shekhar Chairman of Board of Governors, NIT Hamirpur earlier in July this year.
While speaking to TOI, Rajender Rana said that on August 8, 2018 contractual appointment of Assistant Professor was advertised, however, Professor Vinod Yadava issued the regular appointments to all 31 selected candidates with probation period of one year whereas as per rules, probation period is only to be mentioned in the appointment letter of regular faculty.
He said that in the Mathematics and Scientific Computing Department, 5 candidates were appointed of which 4 belonged to Uttar Pradesh and OBC category and fuehrer out of those 4, two belonged to Yadav community. He said that in the recruitment process through advertisement for regular position issued on August 23, 2018, many non performers (having almost zero research since last promotion) internal candidates were promoted.
Rana said that he had lodged with the written complaint along with proof. He said that termination of Professor Vinod Yadava itself is not enough as so far no FIR has been registered against him. “I demand that FIR should be registered against him, crimination proceedings should be initiated for misusing the official position and recoveries should also be made from him to cause financial losses to the institution,” he added.
NIT Hamirpur is one of the 31 NITs of the country, which came into existence on August 7, 1986 as Regional Engineering College (REC), a joint and cooperative enterprise of the Government of India and Government of Himachal Pradesh. At the time of inception, Institute had only two departments that is Civil and Electrical Engineering having an intake of 30 students in each.
On June 26, 2002, REC Hamirpur was awarded the status of Deemed University and upgraded to National Institute of Technology. NIT Hamirpur is an institute of National importance set up by an act of Parliament namely the National Institute of Technology Act 2007 which received the accent of the President of India on June 5, 2007. As per provisions of the said Act, the Institute runs on non-profit basis. Today the institute offers Bachelor, Master and Doctoral programmes in Engineering, Sciences, Architecture, Management and Humanities.