New Delhi: After being in the limbo for many months, the inquiry against Aligarh Muslim University vice-chancellor PK Abdul Aziz and a few members of the executive council has taken off again with the formation of a new two-member committee.

Consisting of Justice Bashir Ahmed Khan, former chief justice of the Delhi High Court, and retired Justice Akbar N Divecha of the Gujarat High Court, the committee has been asked to give its report within two months.

The last inquiry committee of Justice Fakhruddin, retired judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, and AH Jung, former secretary, civil aviation, could not work as the two could not agree on whether the VC should be represented by the university lawyer in the inquiry proceedings. Jung was of the view that since the allegations were specifically against the VC, the university lawyer should not represent him. But Justice Fakhrudin was of the view that under the AMU Act, the VC was entitled to be so represented.
Jung later told the HRD ministry that he was withdrawing from the inquiry. When Justice Fakhruddin came to know of Jung's decision, he also made a similar request. The committee was to give its report by the end of October. Even HRD minister Kapil Sibal's intervention to sort out the misunderstanding between the two did not work.
The ministry had ordered the inquiry into a series of allegations against Aziz ranging from financial, administrative and academic impropriety.

The inquiry was ordered after Aziz's response to the show cause notice issued by the President, who is AMU's visitor, was not found satisfactory. In fact, a section of the executive council (EC) had disputed the reply given by Aziz to the President's notice. It had claimed that a meeting of the EC called by Aziz to reply to the President's notice did not come to any conclusion and, therefore, the reply to the allegations should be considered as that of the VC and not the EC. On the basis of Aziz's response to the President, EC members cited 20 cases in which Aziz had allegedly bungled.

It is alleged that Aziz was already facing an inquiry against him by the Kerala government for alleged financial bungling during his tenure as VC of Cochin University of Science and Technology. In his reply to the President, he is believed to have admitted that there was a probe against him but stated that the Kerala government had dropped a few allegations against him.

Another allegation against Aziz is that AMU paid income tax for both him and the AMU registrar. Aziz admitted in his reply to the President that the income tax was paid by AMU but claimed it was now a loan. However, in an RTI reply, there was no mention of the loan. Also, there is no provision in AMU to provide loans to pay income tax.
Aziz, who has also been accused of a poor academic record and plagiarism, said his academic record had nothing to do with his functioning as VC.

source: TOI