At MANIT Bhopal

In a big clean-up act, HRD minister Kapil Sibal has approved cancellation of appointment of more than 60 teachers of the prestigious Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MNIT), Bhopal, who were recruited illegally in 2005. 

Sources in MNIT said 15 assistant professors and 47 lecturers besides training and placement officer and librarians would lose their jobs. Sources said many teachers did not even meet the criterion of basic academic qualification while some paid bribes to get the job. 

Sibal has asked officials to simultaneously rescind these appointments and begin fresh recruitment. However, officials at MNIT said they were still to et any communication from the HRD ministry. 

These teachers in the rank of lecturers and assistant professors (system of designation has since changed) have been working for the last five years. NITs, directly under the HRD ministry, are being modelled on the lines of IITs. 

"Reversal of appointments in such a large number will definitely harm the reputation of NITs,” an NIT director said. 

"What is shocking is that no action was taken despite a report by a fact-finding committee in 2008 against their appointment," he added. 

The issue of illegal appointments resurfaced when CBI sought HRD ministry’s approval to investigate the role of Rajneesh Shrivastava, currently director NIIT, Jamshedpur, in recruitment of an assistant professor when he was at MNIT, Bhopal. It came to notice that as per the directions of the ministry, MNIT had set up a fact-finding committee in 2007 that looked into irregularities in appointments including the one for which Shrivastava was being held responsible. 

The ministry then decided that since Shrivastava was not alone in taking the decision, it would be proper to deal with lacunae in appointments pointed out by the fact-finding committee. The committee had even suggested a separate inquiry to investigate allegations of bribery in appointment. Therefore, it was decided to cancel all the appointments.
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