Sakshi Chhabra
Karnataka High court refused to quash an FIR made against the former Vice-Chancellor, K.Sudha Rao of the Karnataka State Open University (KSOU).
The petition was filed by K.Sudha Rao who was the Vice-Chancellor of KSOU from 2003-2007 and the petition was dismissed after Justice H.P.Sandesh passed an order stating that there was enough evidence to investigate this case.
Mysuru police accepted the FIR lodged by the Registrar of KSOU over the illegal signing of MoUs with a number of different private institutions.
The complaint was lodged after a specific allegation had been made against the former chancellor and after the confirmation of the report issued by a one-man enquiry committee.
The committee itself found many errors in the signed MoUs.
The court noted that, “The university, right from the tenure of Prof. K. Sudha Rao, committed a grave error in entering into MoUs with many private persons, firms, societies, trusts, private companies etc., permitting them to admit students to various courses without seeking legal opinion from the State government”.
The court further noted that the MoUs signed by the university was beyond the Karnataka jurisdiction. And that the first two MoUs were signed by the former Vice-Chancellor Sudha Rao.
The students admitted that the various departments of the university are contrary to the provisions of the KSOU Act and against the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Human Resources Development, the University Grants Commission, the All-India Council for Technical Education, and the Medical Council of India.