MS Ananth

New Delhi, May 9: IIT Madras director M.S. Ananth has been recruiting faculty and other staff although he has handed in his resignation and is set to demit office by July-end.

According to rules, the head of an institution cannot appoint anybody in the organisation during the last three months of his tenure.

Ananth’s “hurry” has raised questions at a time the premier tech school is already under the scanner for illegal appointments and financial irregularities.

The director, whose resignation has been accepted by President Pratibha Patil, the visitor to the IITs, appointed five deputy registrars and six assistant registrars last week.

The institute, which has been holding interviews for various posts since last month, is set to conduct more. It has advertised for posts of assistant professors for 16 departments.

Besides, the appointment process is on for posts of deputy systems engineer, assistant systems engineer, junior systems engineer, security-cum-fire officer and medical officer.

“It seems the director is in a hurry to appoint people just before he demits office. It is not clear why he is in a hurry,” said a member of the faculty.

The human resource development ministry had recently reprimanded former UGC chairperson Sukhadeo Thorat for his attempts to appoint the commission’s secretary just before the end of his tenure. Thorat was asked not to conduct the interview.

Ananth claimed he had the “right to recruit” as some 150 faculty posts and over 200 non-faculty posts were lying vacant.

“I have the right to recruit people against the vacant posts. The departments had advertised for the posts earlier. Now we are going to hold interviews and fill up the posts,” he said.

Asked if he wasn’t violating the rule by appointing people during the last three months of his tenure, he said: “I don’t know if there is any such rule applicable for the IITs.”

While Ananth’s recruiting spree has raised eyebrows, there have been allegations also of misuse of funds.

The IIT has set up an Indo-China study centre on its campus at a cost of over Rs 50 lakh and some members of the faculty have alleged misuse of the institute’s fund for this centre.

Ananth, however, said the IIT council, the highest decision making body of the tech institutes, had asked all the IITs to set up such centres.

“This centre will work towards understanding the culture and other relevant issues on China. This has been done as per the decision of the IIT council. There is nothing wrong in it,” he said.

The controversies have come at a time IIT Madras is under scrutiny for flouting norms in the appointment of two registrars and allowing employees to switch from a contributory provident fund-cum-gratuity scheme to the more beneficial general provident fund-cum-pension scheme, causing losses to the institute.

In an unrelated development, the IIT directors met yesterday in Delhi where they proposed that the IIT council should have its own website.