SAARC varsity’s VC returns hefty salary, allowances

KARACHI: Acting President of SAARC University (South Asian University), Dr AVS Ramesh Chandra returned the salary and allowance of Rs3.2 million taken as President after a letter from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. While the registrar of South Asian University, Dr. AK Malik has also returned Rs. 9,99,656, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said after the news of irregularities at SAARC University was published in Jang / The News. MEA had written a letter to the registrar stating that he had received excess salary even though he was not entitled to it. However, no action was taken by the foreign ministry against the caretaker president and the registrar for this illegal act and financial criminal act. There are a lot of things in the SAU that go against the rules and will continue to do so until someone against them is legally removed. , Dr. Chandra took over as Acting President in November 2019 when Dr. Kavita Sharma’s tenure ended. According to the rules and regulations of the university, he should have given the charge to the vice-president, but since there was no vice-president at that time, he gave the charge to the Chief Liaison Officer, Dr. Chandra, who is a foreign service officer and came on deputation to the university. Had chosen which was against the rules. Because instead of giving charge to a permanent employee, he chose to give charge to an officer posted on deputation. If there was no Vice President, he should have given the charge to the most senior professor as is done in all other educational institutions across India. In addition, the Registrar illegally fixed the retirement age of non-teaching staff as approved by the Governing Board. Changed without agreement. In addition, the first president wad paid the retirement benefits of Professor GK Chadha, which amounts to about 4.4 million to his widow. In addition, its registrar and vice-president, Prof. Rajiv Kumar Saxena, with support of Registrar illegally violated his contract by over 65 years of age and illegally fixed his salary and caused a loss of about Rs 2 million to the university. Which is refundable. Corruption did not stop here. The registrar increased his fixed term contract from 8 years to 10 years. He illegally increased his retirement age from 60 years to 65 years by misinforming the Governing Board and received an illegal amount of Rs 7.7 million from the university. Which should be recovered. The University is currently in financial difficulties and all these illegal payments should be recovered and the Governing Board is in dire need of strict action so that no one else can misuse its powers and immediately remove the caretaker President and Registrar from their posts immediately and action should be taken against the as per the rules. The Governing Board should immediately form a high-powered committee consisting members from member states to investigate all corruption cases and identify those responsible and take immediate action so that no one else can harm the university manipulate the facts/records.