Belagavi

Congress

KC Venugopal

Rao

Vajubhai Vala

Karnataka

KTPP

Higher Education

Annamalai University

Tamil Nadu

Karnataka High Court

As Vice-Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University, H Maheshappa is alleged to have spent Rs 4.5 crore on renovating the V-C’s residence in. Here’s how he spent the money:Rs 1 lakh on a brass nameplate for himself. He is alleged to have imported it (even though Moradabad in UP is considered the brass capital of the world).Rs 24 lakh on LED TVs (a 55-inch top-of-the-line panel will set you back by around Rs 1 lakh. Go figure)Rs 40 lakh on bathroom fittings (remember how the Planning Commission under Montek Singh Ahluwalia spent Rs 30 lakh on renovating the bathrooms in its New Delhi HQ in 2012 and the uproar it caused?)Rs 50.5 lakh on veneer paneling alone (some things are best left unsaid).The same Maheshappa has now been appointed by theas General Secretary of its Information Technology Cell. While the Congress claims he was chosen for his “knowledge in the IT sector and experience as a Vice-Chancellor of the VTU”, people in the know say it was because of Maheshappa’s background – he belongs to the same community as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and is considered to be very close to him.Maheshappa’s appointment order came on September 26. Interestingly, after his appointment, Congress in-chargetoo visited the IT cell and showered praises over its functioning during a meeting with legislators last week.According to the appointment order signed by PS Niranjan, Chairman of the IT Cell of the KPCC, Maheshappa “has been appointed the General Secretary of the IT wing and has been advised to work for the development and strengthening of the organisation and adhere to the policies and principles of the Congress party and IT cell”.When asked about the corruption charges against Maheshappa, Rao claimed he was not aware of any such allegation.“It is true that I have appointed Dr Maheshappa as the general secretary of the cell. While appointing him, I was not aware of the charges he was facing as I considered only his knowledge in the IT sector and experience as Vice-Chancellor of the VTU. I was only tapping his knowledge and utilising his talent to devise policies and connect with the IT world. If there are any charges against him, then I will look into them and take necessary action aligning with the party ideology,” Rao said.Maheshappa was appointed as VTU V-C on July 2, 2010, for a three-year tenure. After a couple of extensions, his term was supposed to end on June 30, 2016. However, he was stripped of his charge of the VTU by Governorin March 2016. He is the first V-C to be suspended while he still had over 100 days of service left (before him, onlyUniversity vice-chancellor HB Walikar was suspended for irregularities on October 24, 2014, his last day in office).Maheshappa’s fall from grace was very dramatic. Sources in the Raj Bhavan said that he was first issued a show-cause notice on January 21, 2016, asking him to reply to the corruption charges within a fortnight. However, he failed to respond and another show-cause notice was issued on February 16 with a 15-day response time. Maheshappa then requested for more time to reply, and another notice was sent from Raj Bhavan on March 3 giving him a fortnight to respond. However, with no reply coming from Maheshappa by March 13, a suspension order was issued on March 14.There were a rash of charges against Maheshappa. VTU’s corpus fund, which used to be in excess of Rs 500 crore was reduced to nil under Maheshappa’s watch. The accounts furnished had many irregularities: the collection under examination income was not shown; money was transferred from corpus to FD funds; and income from e-learning fees was suppressed. He was also accused of awarding tenders for construction work and purchase of various equipment and software in gross violation of the(Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurements) Act.It wasn’t just the corruption charges. Maheshappa found himself in the news for other irregularities/wrongdoings too. In 2010-11, the state government issued a show-cause notice to him under Section 17 of the Karnataka StateCouncil Act, 2010, for providing false information during his appointment. Maheshappa claimed to have passed with a first division from Mysore Engineering College, though records showed he passed with a second class. He also claimed to have guided four PhD students at the), though there were no records to prove this. He was then accused of recruiting 168 teaching staff flouting the government’s orders.A number of committees were formed to probe the matter. The Krishna Rau committee was appointed to probe irregularities in the recruitment in May 2015. A one-man committee headed by former HC judge KN Keshavanarayana was formed after Justice Ajit J Gunjal (former judge of) expressed his inability to continue as chairman of the inquiry committee. Surprisingly, no action was ever taken against Maheshappa.Some Congressmen, however, have sprung to Maheshappa’s defence. Requesting anonymity, they said that only a one-man committee headed by Justice Ajith Gunjal and later on by Justice KN Keshavaranarayan had submitted a report on allegations of corruption in appointment, regularisation of services and handing out building contracts. “The Governor had only suspended him and did not blacklist him or send him to jail. Maheshappa has expertise in IT sector and hence he has been roped into the party,” a leader said.