Govt seeks legal view on UGC officer’s sacking

The UGC last week had decided to repatriate Sharma back to his parent cadre - Uttar Pradesh - even though the ACC had appointed him, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Apr 25, 2008, 02:07:26 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) is seeking a legal view on whether the decision of the University Grants Commission to sack Raju Sharma, an IAS officer, from the post of the secretary was valid or not.

The UGC last week had decided to repatriate Sharma back to his parent cadre - Uttar Pradesh - even though the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) had appointed him.

Now, the DoPT, the department that manages Indian Administrative Service officers in India, has swung into action after Sharma sought the department's direction on further action he should take after his repatriation. He has submitted UGC's repatriation orders along with his appointment for the post of secretary as approved by the ACC to DoPT. Normally, only the Union cabinet can alter ACC's decision.

Acting on Sharma's representation, the department now wants to know whether an autonomous government organization can undo a Cabinet decision without taking the government's prior approval. The department is likely to seek UGC's comments on the controversial sacking soon, sources told HT.

Sharma also reportedly told the government that UGC was not following government procedures on implementation of policies and projects. Although loopholes in implementation of e-governance project were cited as a major area of concern, he had pointed gaps in giving approvals to Deemed Universities and disbursement of funds. "There was a huge vacuum in the functioning of UGC," a HRD ministry official, who was not willing to be quoted on the controversial issue, said.

UGC chairperson Professor SK Thorat was not available for comments.

HRD ministry's finance officer SK Ray, who had raised objections on the methodology of implementation of the e-governance project has backed Sharma. Under the project, the commission wants to connect all Central universities for faster disbursal of funds and initiating the government's reform agenda.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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