Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday strongly defended the appointment of the controversial former Vice Chancellor of the Visveswaraya Technological University, H. Maheshappa as general secretary of the KPCC IT Cell.
Speaking to reporters near Vidhana Soudha, Mr Siddaramaiah looked visibly upset when asked by reporters about Mr Maheshappa’s appointment, and contended there was nothing wrong in giving him the post as the allegations against him were not serious.
“Yeddyurappa has gone to jail. And now he is the BJP state president. Has Maheshappa committed a bigger offence than him?” Mr Siddaramaiah demanded.
But it appears that not everyone in the Congress agrees with him as Higher Education Minister Basavaraj Rayareddy made no bones about his opposition to the former VC’s party appointment. Asked for his views on the subject in his chamber later, Mr Reddy admitted he was against Mr Maheshappa being made a KPCC office bearer.
“He has been indicted in the investigation and cannot be appointed as office bearer of the party. I will write to KPCC president, Dr G Parameshwar, explaining the charges against Mr Maheshappa and also mark a copy of it to the Chief Minister,” the Minister added.
The former Vice- Chancellor was accused of irregularities and abuse of power during his term at the VTU. He has continued to deny any wrongdoing however, and blames his troubles on “vested interests” out to get him.
Dr Maheshappa, who was appointed on July 2, 2010, for a period of three years and whose term was extended till June 30, 2016, became the first Vice Chancellor of the state’s only technological university to have been suspended. Governor Vajubhai Vala issued the suspension order on March 14 following a report submitted by one-man fact finding committee headed by former high court judge Justice K N Keshavanarayana on irregularities and misuse of power.
There were a slew of charges against Dr Maheshappa. VTU’s corpus fund, which used to be in excess of Rs 500 crore was reduced to nil under his watch.
The accounts furnished had many irregularities: the collection under examination income was not shown; money was transferred from corpus to FD funds; and income from e-learning fees was suppressed.
