Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Ex-VC’s nephew drew ₹16K extra salary 

Madras Univ To Recover Extra Cash Paid To Prof

Siddharth.Prabhakar@timesgroup.com

Chennai: The University of Madras syndicate says it has discovered that former vicechancellor R Thandavan violated rules to enable his nephew, appointed as a professor at the varsity, to draw a salary inflated by ₹16,000 per month over and above what he should have received. the nephew, went on to become the head of the university’s education department. He also received an increment nine months earlier than he should have, documents show.

The university, at a syndicate meeting last month, decided to correct the professor’s pay to ₹43,000/month from the date of his joining in 2015. It also passed a resolution to recover the excess pay that he received, a copy of the syndicate agenda and minutes that TOI obtained shows.

Before his appointment to University of Madras in October 2015, Chandrasekaran was an associate professor at Institute of Advanced Studies, Saidapet, and received a basic pay of ₹59,050.

When the university appointed Chandrasekaran as a professor, Thandavan approved a request he made for “pay protection” (to receive the salary he earned at his previous job, documents show. This was contrary to the terms and conditions that an appointment order dated August 3, 2015 had stipulated. He also received an increment from January 2016, despite his work order stating that he would be eligible to receive a raise only from October 2016.

Thandavan was University of Madras vicechancellor from 2013 to 2016. Syndicate documents show that none of the other faculty members the university appointed as assistant professors or professors between 2014 and 2015 received kind of “pay protection”. An audit of funds had noted these points and raised objections, based on which members of the syndicate took the decision to dock the extra pay that Chandrasekaran received from the time of his appointment.

Thandavan was not available for comment. But Chandrasekaran told TOI that it was mandatory for a university to provide a professor with pay protection.

“I was not starting my career [at the time]. Pay protection was mandatory,” he said. “I am well qualified.”

Chandrasekaran said he had not received any communication from the university regarding the decisions that the syndicate had made. He declined to answer a question on whether he received the benefits he did because he was Thandavan’s nephew.

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