Former Union Secretary for Higher Education, S.N. Mohanty could be in trouble for reprimanding University Grants Commission Chairman, Prof Ved Prakash for expressing what officials claim is the factual and truthful position regarding the Rashtriya Uchchtar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) before the Parliamentary Committee for Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). Sources said that the committee chairman, Dr Satyanarayan Jatiya has take strong exception to Mohanty's behaviour. This followed media disclosures that he had asked Ved Prakash to restrain himself from criticising government policy in depositions before Parliamentary committees. This is being viewed as a breach of privilege.

What has surprised several top BJP leaders is that an official summoned before a parliamentary committee is expected to give his truthful assessment about the subject since the committee has recommendatory powers too and can advise the government to correct wrong policies. In this instance, Ved Prakash had been asked to appear before the committee as a witness and was not a part of the official group from the ministry while it was evaluating the controversial RUSA scheme started during the UPA regime. It was primarily aimed to help Andhra Pradesh where universities had been started in each of the nearly 25 districts when Pallam Raju was the HRD minister and there were at least five bureaucrats from the state serving in the MHRD.

Mohanty, who was recently transferred to the National Human Rights Commission as its secretary, also reportedly earned the ire of the Prime Minister's Office when he had a difference of opinion over setting up of a students' counselling centre in Jammu during PM Narendra Modi's video conferencing with Union secretaries sometime ago. Mohanty insisted that there should be only one centre in Srinagar and that there was no need for another in Jammu, despite cogent reasons articulated by other participants, pointing to the need for both centres.

Sources said that Mohanty had on 27 May written to Ved Prakash where he made two points to be kept in mind prior to deposing before Parliamentary bodies. The first was that government's position including policy was to be articulated in unison and no discordant note was voiced. Second, any departure from the confirmed policy position of the government, if it is to be articulated must be done with the prior permission of the Secretary.

The letter has been seen by the Parliamentary committee as an attempt to pressurise a "witness", who is deposing truthfully the factual position. The Secretary's conduct has also been viewed with seriousness as it could prevent the real position to come out before the committee and was therefore against parliamentary propriety and procedures. In this context, there is an emerging view amongst members of the Parliamentary committee that Mohanty should be hauled up for breach of privilege to ensure that no bureaucrat in future tries to mislead a committee or conceal facts.

Ved Prakash, in his deposition had stated that RUSA was not serving the purpose for which it was started and because of the programme, money was not reaching the institutions directly but was being deposited in state treasuries. Thereafter, bureaucrats would sit over funds and not release them on time. The UGC chief therefore rubbed the bureaucracy the wrong way where a section felt that he had slighted them, while this was not the case as he was simply highlighting the facts to drive home the point that there were anomalies in the scheme which had taken away a huge amount of funds from the UGC. The states were unable to utilise the funds as they were unable to release the required amount (35%) in order to avail the money from the Centre.

Even way back in April 2013, Ved Prakash had drawn the attention of the then HRD secretary, Ashok Thakur about the misgivings about this scheme. He had stated that a plan allocation of Rs 25,000 crore had been made under strategic support for RUSA as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS). Though the scheme is indicative of the potential for forging ahead, there are certain apprehensions about the operational capacity of the scheme under the current plan as it would be based on the pattern of the CSS of the school sector. He had stated that it should be kept in mind that the operational design of RUSA, may not be able to fully utilise Rs 25,000 crore. It would therefore be worth considering whether earmarking Rs 5,000 crore for RUSA will be a practical proposition and the remaining Rs 20,000 crore could be given back to the UGC. Internal re-adjustments can be made if the situation so warranted.