NEW DELHI: Hyderabad University administration was squarely responsible for mishandling of the Rohith Vemula case. There was trust deficit and a feeling of being discriminated against in certain groups of students. But the human resource development ministry’s reminder letters were not a contributory factor in creating “any pressure” on university authorities. These are the key findings of the two-member fact-finding committee set up by HRD ministry in the Vemula controversy.EThas reviewed the report. The panel recommends that an external inquiry be set up to ‘re-examine’ the whole issue and that Vemula’s family should receive compensation. The university had last week announced an exgratia compensation of Rs 8 lakh for Vemula’s family.The panel says all three top administrative officials of the University of Hyderabad – the vice-chancellor, registrar and the dean of student welfare – told the committee that the varsity “had not taken serious cognizance of the letters from MHRD”. The three top officials also said they “did not feel any pressure to act” because of the reminder letters from the ministry.The V-C of the university has gone on leave. The students agitating over the issue have demanded his removal.The HRD ministry-constituted committee points to “gaps in several processes” followed by the university administration. The university had expelled Vemula in December 2015.As reported by ET earlier, the committee points to the difference in interim and final proctoral board decisions. It also notes that even the sub-committee of the executive council of the university looking into the matter had “not carried out a detailed exercise” and had “not examined the matter afresh”. The EC sub-committee “merely reviewed the documents”, the report says.A “dysfunctional” student grievance redressal process, the report observes, is “responsible for enhancing the feeling of deprivation and discrimination among students from socially and economically weaker sections”.The report adds that “very critical issues” were “left unchecked or unresolved… despite fault lines being obvious”. The report goes on to mention that there was a “trust deficit” and a “feeling of academic discrimination among some of the students”.The committee notes that there was an absence of standard operating procedures for such issues, leading to very ‘ad hoc decision making”.Accordingly, the HRD committee suggested that the “whole matter be re-examined” through an external body. HRD ministry had last week announced a judicial commission to look into the matter after the committee submitted its report on January 22.HRD minister Smriti Irani had sent ministry officials Shakila Shamsu and Surat Singh as members of the probe panel to the Hyderabad University last week.The suicide by research scholar Vemula earlier this month became a political controversy. He was one of the five students associated with the Ambedkar Student Association.They were expelled from the hostel and several other parts of the university after the administration concluded they were at fault in a campus conflict between them and the head of ABVP’s university unit.Coming down strongly on the varsity, the two-member committee observed that the institutional redressal mechanism for student grievance redressal was as good as “non-functional/dysfunctional”.