An external review committee at NUJS Kolkata, comprising of former Rajasthan high court chief justice NN Mathur and former senior government auditors Saroj Das and Asok Deb, reported that certain facts were “indicative of financial mismanagement of funds by the university”.
It also recommended measures to prevent “such irregularities” in future. [Full report below]
The committee, which submitted its report on 3 April, was constituted by NUJS vice chancellor (VC) Ishwara Bhatt on 8 February after “a group of students submitted a representation for enquiry regarding alleged mismanagement of funds in the university during the period 2011 to 2014”.
The committee reported that the university followed an “apparently fabricated” tendering process to pick a contractor for its classroom interiors, extended “undue favour” to the chosen contractor and did not maintain “transparency” in the purchase of items, apart from violating other procedural rules and regulations.
They examined nine alleged instances of financial irregularities in the use of the university’s funds and concluded that the proper procedure appeared not to have been followed in at least two cases.
It is understood that the report has been seen by NUJS students after having been circulated by the student bar council.
Bhatt, commenting to Legally India, said: “The executive council has authorised the vice chancellor to take appropriate action relating to the points raised in the report. We’ll be following the due procedure. The findings have been accepted by the EC as well as the other bodies.”
Dodgy tender
The committee reported that there was an orchestrated attempt to award the classroom interiors tender to a contractor, M/s Curtain Centre.
“The Nundy’s were not interested till 26th but submitted a tender only on 27.11.2012 where the rates were higher by more than Rs one crore than the rates offered by M/s Curtain Centre. The sequence of matter is indicative of the fact that submission of the rates by M/s Nundy’s was solely in the interest of the single tenderer to facilitate him to be lowest tenderer. The elaboration as indicated above speaks in volume about financial mismanagement, irregularities, which needs in depth probe.”
“From the facts given it clearly emerges that “Curtain Centre” was the lone tenderer and as such authorities were required to follow the procedure of re-advertising, but tender of “Curtain Centre” was rescued by an apparently fabricated tender of “Nundys” at last moment.
Undue favour
The committee said that the university wasted over Rs 9 lakh with the registrar clearing the contractor’s bills prompty without waiting for a sanity check of the work done by the contractor.
“As the tender was for more than Rs 1.32 crore and the Vice Chancellor was not part of the Tender Committee to witness deliberations, he ought to have been apprised of the entire proceedings of the meeting by the registrar. We have noticed that noting made by the Registrar on the file in the subject matter are cryptic […]”
“The promptness shown by the NUJS in releasing the payments of two on A/c Bills to the contractor without any measurement or certification of the specification quality of the materials supplied and works done by the contractor has therefore, resulted in excess release of Rs 931686.27. This is an example of ‘Undue Favour’ shown to the Contractor.”
“The above facts are indicative of financial mismanagement of fund by the University.”
Lack of transparency
The committee highlighted the opaque manner of purchase of air conditioners at the university.
“The very decision making in the matter of purchase of AC machines (Total 106 machines) from a vendor offering ‘Carrier’ make AC machines without obtaining prior sanction of the Finance Committee/Executive Council of the University remained unexplained with proper justification.
This may be looked into for proper financial management and transparency in the financial transactions with the vendors/contractor and service providers to the University.”
A group of NUJS students, who in February believed they had found discrepancies in the university’s financial accounts, had asked for the registrar’s resignation before the 8 February executive council meeting. They had also launched a “loss of confidence” petition against the VC.
Measures
The inquiry recommended at the end of its 22-page report that in future the finance or executive committee should be part of capital expenditure decisions, the tender committee should include at lesat one person who is not at NUJS, and that several other best practices should be followed.
Comments
1. The students should file a police complaint and seek the arrest of the culprits at once. As they are CPM appointees, the present government will be more than happy to put them behind bars.
2. The VC must resign. An inquiry must also be made against BS Chimni and MP Singh and they must be asked how they regularized the appointment of poor-quality teachers.
3. I also feel an inquiry should be made as to why websites like LI and Bar & Bench censored the wrong doings and whether any favours were exchanged.
Could you please tell other law schools how exactly you got this committee to inquire? Was it a student initiative to get this done? If yes, how?
A lot of other law schools need this in various matters
The truth, which can be verified by the EC, is that the inquiry is yet to be concluded.The report has not been endorsed by the EC as the principles of natural justice were not followed, since the report was submitted by the Committee without taking depositions from the other side.The EC, on the contrary, has directed the Vice Chancellor to follow proper procedure and take written depositions from the other side, which will then be considered by the EC and other bodies, before reaching any conclusion.
As a responsible blog, we request Legally India to verify the truth before publishing stories about incomplete investigations, which unnecessarily create hype and bring NUJS a bad name.
There seems to be something majorly wrong with NUJS these days. Bar Council of India should take strong note of it. What have they been doing?
And, students keep telling me that there is this lady teacher who has been running the show in NUJS, including instigating students against teachers and the admin and leaking confidential documents to students. Where does she get all the authority from? And why?
Kian, there seems to a lot beneath the surface. You should behave responsibly and bring all that out, rather than relying on half-truths.
While we realise that corruption and financial mismanagement make for juicy stories, we request Legally India not to publish misleading articles by uploading a report not endorsed by the EC and create an impression in the mind of readers that there is, in fact, irregularity in financial matters at NUJS.
As for the EC part, it's quoted from Prof. Bhatt's statement and I'm finding it hard to believe your word on the correctness of the statement considering you are anonymous with no proof while Prof. Bhatt has gone on record with the statement.
I also find your statement " we request Legally India not to publish misleading articles by uploading a report not endorsed by the EC and create an impression in the mind of readers that there is, in fact, irregularity in financial matters at NUJS." laughable. Create an impression of irregularity? The cat's out of the bag now, and this mess stinks to high heaven. The procedural deficiency in the method of compiling the report(by not deposing the other side) does not change the facts of the report. The massive and obvious discrepancies in the financial documents need very little explanation. Even if(that's a very large IF) the "other side" succeeds in proving that the mismanagement was not deliberate but a result of mistakes, a financial cockup of this magnitude proves their sheer incompetence, if not corruption.
As a NUJS Faculty I hope you know about the financial scam and academic and appointment scams in NUJS from 2008-2010. If you say you are not aware then what is happening NUJS will happen more. Have you the FACULTIES OF NUJS ever taken a step to set right in NUJS where you all have taken a responsibility to build up a strong legal education system in India to protect the law of the Country ? Why don't you all speak out on the report of the Enquiry Committee held in August 2013 ? Why that report is suppressed by Prof. Bhatt? Is there any vested interest of the VC or he is afraid the Pandora box will be opened ? Doesn't NUJS AUTHORITY feel ashamed for violating 6th Pay Commission rules to give illegal benefit to their own candidate ? Isn't Prof Bhatt and Prof. Surojit Mukhopadhyay ashamed of themselves for violating law of RTI after taking the fess of RTI ?Is this what is taught to the students of NUJS on RTI ?
Why all of you are silent ?
Who was given the Air conditioned room in NUJS and why the students fess was spent to pay the AC electricity bill ?
Who was the man behind the financial scam in NUJS ? Where did that money go ?
[b]Why all of you are silent ?[/b]
[b]Soon the nation and the students of NUJS and their parents will be asking questions to all of you[/b]
I think it's perfectly clear in the article that it's just the committee's view of things, rather than established fact, no?
[b]Prof. Bhatt please speak out . Nation wants to hear from you[/b]