REGISTERED
No. JVM/C/Rajeev/0114
Aug 07, 2014.
Smt Smriti Irani,
Union
Minister for Human Resource Development &
Chairman, IIT Council,
Government of India,
Shastri Bhawan,
NEW DELHI-110001
Sub:Victimization of
Prof Rajeev Kumar, an IIT Teacher for Reforming IIT JEE Processes
Hon’ble Smriti Irani Ji,
We would like to bring to your kind notice the
victimization of a good academician Prof Rajeev Kumar of IIT Kharagpur by the
self-seeking authorities of the Institute. Prof. Kumar
is a victim of UPA Government, MHRD
officials and IIT Kharagpur officials,
who were all hand in glove with each other in victimizing Prof Kumar for
all these years. They continue to be the same even now. We present some of Prof
Kumar’s commendable work done in the area of academics and streamlining the IIT
system for the benefit of all concerned.
The tenacious efforts made by Prof. Rajeev Kumar of
IIT Kharagpur led to reforming IITs’ Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) and
other admission/competitive examinations. Kumar has brought about systematic
reforms in (i) a priori selection criteria, (ii) carbon copy of answer script,
(iii) release of answer keys before results, (iv) online availability of evaluated scanned scripts, (v) multiple
rounds of admissions with exit policy, etc. Two independent benches of Supreme
Court acknowledged Kumar’s positive work and termed him as one
of the many unsung heroes who helped in improving the system.
Kumar also solely authored UG engineering
accreditation guidelines (May 2011 Edn.), by which India acquired full
signatory status in Washington Accord in June 14. Kumar adopted ‘transparent,
well defined processes with built-in-consistency checks and participation of
stakeholders’ in both the above ‘Public Services,’ which are aimed at Min.
government, Max. governance.
In
retaliation to his “Public Services” and “Disclosure of several conflicts of
interests and irregularities in Public Interest” (e.g., IIT Kharagpur Chairman
running IIT-JEE Coaching classes and IIT directors being indicted by CBI/CVC),
IIT suspended Kumar in May 2011, and charge sheeted Kumar on those charges in
which Kumar blew the whistle. IIT Kharagpur set up a Kangaroo court with sole
aim of falsely implicating Kumar by denial of natural justice and fairness. The
Kangaroo Court, without any evidence, found Kumar guilty of also those charges,
which were never levelled against Kumar in the charge-sheet. The Kangaroo
Court’s conclusions are contrary to Supreme Court’s Judgments and CVC’s
findings.
The initial stand of your Ministry dated 10.10.11
was that “IITs enjoys administrative
autonomy and intervention by the Ministry in a disciplinary case is not
feasible,” was changed due to receiving several CVC queries. Annoyed with
whatever was going on in IIT Kharagpur in this case we wrote to the President
of India vide our letter No. JVM/ C/ Rajeev/ 0112 dated Dec 03, 2012 with a
copy endorsed to your predecessor (copy attached). In April 2013, Min. HRD
directed IIT Kharagpur to revoke the suspension order after making Kumar
academically dysfunctional for 2 years.
However, IIT Kharagpur defied Min. HRD’s orders,
dated 22.10.12 and 12.12.12 and did not place Kumar’s representations alleging
bias in the Inquiry before the Reviewing Authority, the Visitor. Min. HRD
defied their own orders, and did not place allegations of the biased inquiry
despite receiving President Secretariat’s letter, dated 28.02.13 for appropriate action.
IIT Board’s order, dated 20.06.14, did not consider
any violation of principles of natural justice in the inquiry. IIT found Kumar
guilty on several counts though IIT failed to specify even a single violation
of conduct rules. IIT proposed a penalty of Kumar’s compulsory retirement. The
proposed penalty is malicious, mala fide, ultra-vires and in violation of the
laws of the land. We would request you
to kindly see the relevant Newspaper Reports in the following links
In accordance with autonomous IIT Kharagpur
Statutes 15(12), we request you to please initiate the following action and get
the charges and compulsory retirement order of the IIT Kharagpur against
Professor Kumar revoked. It would be in fitness of things to get this case
reviewed by a fresh team of persons who were not involved earlier.
(i) place the allegations of biased inquiry,
dated 21.02.13, before the appellate authority, the Visitor for
appropriate action as per President Secretariat’s letter, dated 28.02.13, and
Min. HRD’s letter, dated 22.10.12,
(ii)
examine independently the Inquiry Report, and
Kumar’s response dated 09.07.14 to the penalty show cause notice by CVC, UPSC
or some other independent body,
(iii)
consider independently Kumar’s letter, dated
16.07.14 for his protection from victimization,
(iv)
recommend to the
Visitor for quashing the inquiry and the charge-sheet for Kumar’s protection
from victimization as per the applicable Whistleblower Gazette Notifications,
2004/2013 or Sec. 11(1) of Whistleblower Protection Act, 2011.
Further we request you to kindly protect Prof Kumar
by re-locating him appropriately so that he is allowed to carry on his academic
and research work for the benefit of the students, the IITs and last but not
the least, this country. We are sure that all the records, as
mentioned above, are with IIT Kharagpur, Min. HRD and CVC. Yet we suggest you
to call Prof. Kumar for documents and clarification, if and when needed. Please
let us know if we can be of some help to you in resolving this long pending
issue.
With thanks and kind
regards,
Yours faithfully,
(V.N.Sharma)
An
IITK Alumni
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
REGISTERED
No. JVM/ C/ Rajeev/ 0112 December
03, 2012
To
Sri Pranab Mukherjee,
President
of India & Visitor, IIT Kharagpur,
President’s
House, Raisina Hills,
New
Delhi 110 001
Sub:
Request for immediate revocation of suspension of Prof. Rajeev Kumar of the
Dept. of Computer Science & Engg. of IIT Kharagpur
Dear Sir,
I would like to bring to your kind notice the case of
computer science teacher, Prof. Rajeev Kumar, who has been put on suspension
for the past 18 months, without any review. In absence of the review, the
suspension order, dated 13/05/11, is not valid after 90-days, i.e. from
12/08/11 in accordance with the applicable CCS (CCA) Rule 10(7).
Prof. Kumar discovered irregularities, in the merit lists of
Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for admissions in IITs. His tenacious efforts
of the past 6 years have led to improvement
of JEE, which is much reformed now due to transparency. Some of the
measures, as adopted by JEE are – (i) cutoff procedure and marks are known a
priori, (ii) carbon copy of the answer script is provided to prevent tampering,
(iii) answer keys are announced before the result, (iv) scored marks and
evaluated scripts are made available online before the result declaration, and
(v) multiple rounds of admissions are done with exit policy to re-allocate
surrendered seats for avoiding wastage of vacant seats.
Two independent benches of Supreme Court lauded Prof. Kumar’s efforts in making the merit ranking process of IIT-JEE more transparent and accurate. The Supreme Court called him one of the many unsung heroes who helped in improving the system.
Two independent benches of Supreme Court lauded Prof. Kumar’s efforts in making the merit ranking process of IIT-JEE more transparent and accurate. The Supreme Court called him one of the many unsung heroes who helped in improving the system.
It appears that due to his exposure of academic and financial irregularities (including CBI’s indictment of the then IIT Director, Deans and others), Prof. Kumar was suspended, on the charges on which he suggested to reform the procedures for maintaining academic sanctity.
Presently Prof. Kumar is debarred from teaching and research. He is made academically dysfunctional. The indefinite suspension is doing irreparable losses and ruining his professional career in addition to the loss to students in academic terms. His allegations of biased Inquiry were not addressed. Therefore, MHRD directed IIT vide letter No. F.No. C-13011/67/2011-I dated 22nd October 2012 for (i) review of the continued suspension as per provisions of CCS (CCA) Rules, and (ii) processing of Prof. Kumar’s representations alleging bias against the Inquiry Officer for placing before the Reviewing Authority, the Visitor, in accordance with the CCS (CCA) Rules. (copy attached).
In my view it is a serious matter that IIT Kharagpur has ignored this well
considered direction of the Ministry and remained silent till now to the above directions.
I believe IIT Kharagpur – first of the IITs and a premier
institute of learning in India in its own right - need to be the role model in
the country with respect to justice, fairness, obedience to authority and
respect for human rights. Instead it has chosen to brutalize a "hero"
teacher. Instead of punishing the guilty, it has chosen to punish the
messenger. History will not be kind to its actions which do not reflect
high on its reputation. At the same time it will also not be kind to this
generation of intellectuals and the system of governance which stood to punish
those who blew whistle to keep the society and the country safe and away from
the wrong doers and their corrupt practices. I feel that it is a matter of
shame to all IITians, I being one of them.
In view of the above I request your personal attention for revoking the suspension order and
quashing the charge sheet against Prof Rajeev Kumar with immediate effect.
Thanking
you,
Sincerely Yours,
(V.N.Sharma)
Encl: Copy of letter No. F.No. C-13011/67/2011-I dated
22nd October 2012
Copy to:
|
Dr.
M. Mangapati Pallam Raju,
Union Minister for Human Resource Development & Chairman, IIT Council,
Shastri Bhawan,
New Delhi 110 001.
|
--For information and with a request to please do the
needful for revocation of suspension of Prof. Rajeev Kumar of IIT Kharagpur.
|
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