A day after the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) arrested one of its employees on charges of accepting bribe, the Mahatma Gandhi university , Kottayam, has decided to constitute an internal inquiry into the episode.
Officials said a decision on the inquiry commission and its scope of investigation would be decided during a meeting of the varsity Syndicate, slated to be held here on Monday. The probe will run parallel to an investigation by the VACB into the episode.
“This is the first time that such an incident is being reported from the varsity and it will be dealt with due seriousness. The accused employee has already been placed under suspension,” said B. Prakash Kumar, registrar, MGU.
Sources said the accused official, identified as C.J. Elsy, had been appointed as a clerical assistant and was promoted as the University Assistant subsequently. “She was accorded promotions based on qualification in accordance with the previously existing service rules and had been with the MBA section since 2016,” they said.
VACB officials said the accused allegedly misled the complainant by taking advantage of the pandemic-induced delays and resultant confusion in the conduct of supplementary examinations and publication of results. They are also probing whether the accused, an active member of an employees' union, had received help from any other employees within the institution.
As the per the case, the accused official had received ₹1.25 lakh from a student for issuing her mark list along with a provisional certificate. Acting on a complaint, the VACB sleuths arrested her from a location near the Pareekshabhavan on the varsity campus, while accepting a bribe of ₹15,000 from the complainant.
Though the student, who completed her MBA from an affiliated college in 2016, had originally passed her supplementary examination written last year, Elsy declared the result as failed and sought ₹30,000 more for issuing a provisional certificate. The complainant, however, later came to know about the original result later and lodged a vigilance complaint.
