‘Illegal re-employment of faculty: recover ₹1.13-crore financial loss incurred by Periyar University’

The Association of University Teachers (AUT) Tamil Nadu has demanded recovering the ₹1.13-crore loss incurred by providing illegal re-employment to preferred teachers. Association general secretary K. Raja said that the change in university administration under the Vice-Chancellor (V-C) in-charge committee has not brought forth any desirable changes but on the contrary, is following the footsteps of the previous administration. Periyar University statutes say that full-time teachers of the university shall be entitled to a summer vacation of two months from May 1 to June 30 (both days inclusive) and all gazetted holidays. This confirms that the university’s academic year begins on July 1 and ends on June 30, with May and June being vacation period. The Syndicate meeting in January 2019, reiterated in writing that the academic year of Periyar University is to be from July 1 to April 30. As per the resolution, teachers retiring on or before June 30 have been relieved accordingly, and those retiring after July were given re-employment. Professors Rajendran (Management Studies) and Murugesh (Botany) were relieved from service, denying re-employment, as both superannuated in June 2017 and June 2018, respectively. As per the resolution, re-employment is to be granted only to those teachers retiring on or after July 1 of each academic year. But, when the Syndicate decided to grant re-employment to P. Kumaradhas, HoD, Physics, who attained superannuation in June 2022, K. Premkumar, in his capacity as the then general secretary of Periyar University Teachers’ Association (PUTA), drew the attention of the ex-officio members of the Syndicate to this gross violation. Later, Premkumar was vindictively suspended and subsequently terminated from service. Not only Mr. Kumaradhas, but also two teachers, Anbazhagan (Geology) and Selvaraj (Mathematics), were illegally granted re-employment in contravention of the rules, causing a huge financial loss to the tune of ₹86.42 lakh to the public exchequer. At the same time, Professor Muthusamy (Mathematics) was relieved from service on June 30, 2024, denying re-employment. But, the Syndicate meeting, held in November 2024, granted re-employment for nine months till March 2026 to V.R. Palanivelu of the Department of Management, who superannuated on June 14, 2025. This illegal re-employment of Mr. Palanivelu incurred an additional financial loss of ₹26.67 lakh to the university in the academic year 2025-26. Stating that the Department of Higher Education continued to show indifference to the series of violations in the university, despite the receipt of an interim inquiry report from IAS officer S. Palanisamy, Mr. Raja added that the present administration placed the list of teachers Nandakumar (Journalism and Mass Communication), Venkatachalam (Psychology), Radhakrishnan (Library Science), and Vaithianathan (Economics), who are retiring during the academic year 2025-2026 for re-employment. However, the name of S. Velayuthan (Tamil), who is to retire on June 30, has been omitted from the list. Ironically, the Commissioner of Collegiate Education, E. Sundaravalli, is the convenor of V-C in-charge committee of Periyar University, Bharathidasan University, and Madurai Kamaraj University. The AUT considers what is happening at Periyar University to be an unabated illegal grant...

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