New Delhi, Feb. 22: Private email correspondence between the current principal of Delhi’s St Stephen’s college and key insiders suggests that Valsan Thampu’s controversial selection as head of the prestigious institution in late 2008 was rigged.The correspondence suggests Thampu dictated the exact procedure for selecting the principal through a key member of the college’s highest decision-making body and the legal counsel for the St Stephen’s chairman.

He was also allowed access to secret college documents and plans in the lead up to the selection when he was one of the candidates and had no official position in the institution, the correspondence reveals.

The correspondence threatens to hurl St Stephen’s – one of India’s most prestigious colleges – into its biggest controversy ever, and is peppered with ugly references to the sharp divides that have brought embarrassment in recent times.

Sunil Mathews, the legal counsel for St Stephen’s chairman Bishop Sunil Singh, and the sender or one of the recipients of almost all the most indicting emails, accepted they were genuine.

Thampu also did not deny that the emails were genuine, though he referred to them as “purported” correspondence.

“This is a desperate attempt by some people to malign me. I pity them,” Thampu told The Telegraph.

Thampu was appointed officer on special duty to head the college in 2007, but had to resign from the post in March 2008 in the middle of a controversy. The University Grants Commission and the country’s apex minority education watchdog decided he was unqualified for the post of principal at St Stephen’s, a minority college.

His resignation also coincided with sharp divisions within the faculty, with some hailing him as a saviour and others accusing him of using religion – Christianity – to build a coterie while diluting academic standards.

Between March and his eventual appointment as full-fledged principal on September 16, 2008, Thampu had no official position on any body of the college.

But the almost daily emails between Thampu, legal counsel Mathews and Reverend Enos Pradhan – an influential member of the College Supreme Council that eventually picked the principal – reveal that Thampu was continuously informed of all college secrets.

Bishop Sunil Singh had appointed Mathews – an alumnus of the college – to draft most Supreme Council documents.

Matthews, probably unknown to the bishop, not only shared these documents with Thampu but often sought his advice on how to draft the documents.

Pradhan and Mathews also tried, through emails, to influence other members of the Supreme Council to pick Thampu as principal.

“Dear Sirs…. I just thought I would send you a copy of a certain person’s [Thampu’s] CV. He should be what the doctor ordered and he shares your objectives,” Mathews wrote in an email to Pradhan and Nirmal Andrews, another Supreme Council member, in an email on September 3 just days ahead of the principal’s selection.

The detailed correspondence between March and Thampu’s eventual selection also reveals the ugly animosity Thampu shared with his predecessor, the late Anil Wilson, who Thampu thought wanted to deny him a shot at the principal’s post.

In one email to Mathews, Thampu – a priest – calls Wilson an “academic rapist”.