Will Visva-Bharati Vice Chancellor Sushanta Dattagupta be sacked?

New Delhi: The HRD Ministry has submitted a report to President Pranab Mukherjee saying that Visva-Bharati Vice Chancellor Sushanta Dattagupta is guilty of administrative irregularities, a report said on Tuesday.

If the President accepts the report then Dattagupta will be the first central university head to be sacked by the NDA government.

The HRD Ministry headed by Smriti Irani submitted its report on Monday.

In Januray 2015, the HRD Ministry had decided to set up a committee under Secretary Vrinda Sarup to enquire into alleged administrative irregularities committed by Duttagupta.

The committee was set up against the backdrop of questions being raised about his "autocratic style" of functioning in some quarters and by Congress MP P Bhattacharya in Parliament.

The probe committee comprised former Allahabad High Court judge Sakharam Singh Yadav, Sri Aurobindo Institute of Indian Culture (Shillong) chairman BB Dutta and South Asian Archaeology of Cambridge University professor Dilip Chakrabarti.

He had accused the VC of appointing a Controller of Examinations despite having no powers to do so, and sanctioned key posts in violation of the Visva Bharati Act.

Terming it as "unfortunate and illegal", Bhattacharya had alleged that the VC, who is retired person Jawaharlal Nehru University, was drawing pension equal to his salary.

Datta Gupta's name was considered for the Padma Shri in 2014 but he was not given the honour after the West Bengal Commission for Women objected to it over allegations of sexual harassment against him in the past.

As the then director of the Satyendra Nath Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Datta Gupta in 2005 was accused of sexually harassing a female scientist.

He has repeatedly denied the allegations.