Principal who collected fine illegally grilled by BDU officials

TRICHY: The principal of a constituent college of Bharathidasan University who was found to have unlawfully collected fine from students despite their paying the examination fees well on time was grilled by the university administrators on Tuesday. Sources said that action is likely to be taken against him for his unilateral decision to change the last date of payment of examination fee stipulated by the university.
Appearing before vice-chancellor P Manishankar and controller of examination K Doraiyarasan, principal of Bharathidasan University Constituent Arts and Science College in Lalgudi, V P Thangavelu, gave a written explanation in this regard. The vice-chancellor said that appropriate action would be taken against him based on an inquiry.
It may be recalled that TOI had reported how over 50 students of the constituent college were forced to pay Rs 300 as fine in addition to the semester examination fee. This was despite the fact that the students had paid the fees before the last date stipulated by the university. While March 1 was fixed as last date by the university for its constituent colleges and affiliated colleges to pay fees, Thangavelu unilaterally fixed the last date as February 26 for his college students. While an undergraduate student on an average has to pay an examination fee ranging from Rs 700 to over R 1,500 based on his arrear papers, students who paid their fee on February 26 and 27 had to pay an additional Rs 300 as fine.
The university administration may soften its stand towards the principal considering the fact that Thangavelu had returned the fine collected from most of the students. He had also claimed that his intention was to collect fee on time and not to impose fine on students. However, sources from the college say that Thangavelu returned the fine from most of the students only after getting in writing from them that it was they who paid excess fee by mistake. “If Thangavelu’s only intention was to collect fee from students ahead of the last date, he should not have collected late fee,” pointed out an official who did not want to be named.