Vice-Chancellor days may haunt new PSC chairman

KOCHI: Even as K S Radhakrishnan, former Vice-Chancellor of Sree Sankara University of Sanskrit, Kalady, is all set to head the PSC, skeletons in the cupboard of the university are tumbling out. This is likely to cause him and the government huge embarrassment as widespread irregularities in appointments reportedly took place when he was the VC from 2004 to 2008.Documents in the possession of Express prove that many of the eligible candidates for the class IV posts were eliminated from the rank list while undeserving ones figured in it in 2006. A candidate who took the Malayalam language exam in Hindi got placement.Ravish G S ( Reg. No.5994) wrote the test in Malayalam using Hindi as medium. And Ravish’s answer was evaluated by N C Unnikrishnan of Thirumala Devaswom Teachers Training Institute, Mattanchery, a Malayalam teacher trainer as per the report submitted by the district education officer. Ravish, who got 45 marks in the written test and 19 marks in the interview, was appointed.Anilan P V (Reg.No.1336), a candidate who secured 54 marks comprising 51 in the written test and three in the interview, couldn’t find a place in the rank list whereas the cut-off mark was 50.Jayasree P K (3833) with 54 marks also failed to make it to the rank list.While Anilan, a SC candidate was avoided, Girija T K (Reg.No.3374) who scored the same marks got placement.Girija, wife of a personal staff of Industries Minister P K Kunhalikutty, scored 42 to secure the post reserved for SC category.While Anilan got only three marks in the interview, Girija got 12 marks out of 20.The selection committee headed by K S Radhakrishnan decided to favour the temporary employees who had been working in the university.Though there were precedents of giving weightage marks to temporary employees, these marks were given only in the interview and not in the written test.The university authorities decided to give up to 30 marks to such employees where the total marks for the written test were 60.There were allegations that the reservation system had been sabotaged during Radhakrishnan’s tenure as VC. While making the appointments to the vacancies of library assistants in 2006, the varsity authorities didn’t bring out supplementary lists for reservation communities, which is mandatory.Petty politicking had been eating into the goodwill of the university ever since its inception in 1993. There are allegations that the CPM-led service union had been enjoying excessive powers. The status of appointments made during the period of the syndicate appointed by the LDF is more grave.