AICTE to conduct inquiry into suicide of engineering faculty in Chennai college

Chennai: The suicide of a member of the engineering faculty of a city engineering college two months ago, after the college refused to hand him his original certificates, has been taken seriously by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) which is planning to conduct an inquiry on January 8 at the college premises.

The 30-year-old T Vasantha Vanan joined the faculty at Sree Sastha Institute of Engineering and Technology in Chembarambakkam, in August last year. He quit the job within a month after getting a job as temporary teaching faculty in the production engineering department of Madras Institute of Technology (MIT).

Though he repeatedly asked Sree Sastha Institute to give him back his original certificates, the college management reportedly refused to do so and harassed him. His relatives alleged that he was even thrashed by hirelings of the college management for going to the police.

It is alleged that the humiliation caused by the treatment meted out to him, pushed the gold medallist from the prestigious College of Engineering, Guindy, to take the decision to end his life on November 12, 2018.

“AICTE’s regional office will hold the inquiry in the college premises on Tuesday. The council has summoned the relatives of Mr Vasantha Vanan to the inquiry,” sources said.

During his interview prior to joining Sree Sastha, Vasantha Vanan had reportedly informed the management that he had applied for the temporary position at MIT, one of the four university departments of Anna University, and would take up the job if it was offered to him.

But when he received the offer letter from MIT, the management of Sree Sastha Institute allegedly refused to hand him back his certificates though he had not received even a month’s salary from the college.

Since AICTE has received several complaints regarding the withholding of certificates of faculty members, it introduced penal action for such an act in its approval process handbook for 2019-20.

‘The Institution should not demand the original degree certificates from the faculty members at the time of joining the Institution,’ says the AICTE handbook.
‘Institutions demanding the original degree certificates from faculty members at the time of joining the institution shall be liable for no admission for one
academic year or withdrawal of approval of the institutions,’ the council warned the engineering colleges. The punitive section has been newly added to the handbook to empower universities to take action against erring colleges.

The Private Educational Institutions Employees’ Association has
welcomed the move by AICTE and suggested to Anna University that it should not ask for original certificates.

“Instead of asking for original certificates, the university officials should ask for certificate numbers and copies of original certificates. They can later verify the genuineness of the certificates with the certificate numbers,” said KM Karthik, president of the Association. He said only around 15 per cent of colleges have returned the certificates.