Bharathiar University Vice-Chancellor A Ganapathy has been booked under SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act for allegedly preventing an SC woman candidate from doing her post-doctoral research fellowship in the university.

The police, on a direction from the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, registered a case against the V-C. The Commission had issued an order following a complaint by Lakshmi Prabhakaran that the university had refused to hand over all her certificates, thus preventing her from pursuing post-doctoral research.

She claimed that her name figured in the UGC’s shortlisted candidates but she was not able to proceed further due to the documents purposely withheld by the university during the verification process.

Lakshmi also alleged that she was denied the job of an assistant professor in the university’s Department of Biotechnology after she finished her Ph.D despite being eligible under the priority criteria and blamed it on favouritism. She has challenged it in the court and the case is pending.

Her other allegation was that her husband, who was working as a driver under consolidated category in the varsity, has also been terminated from service and alleged that the V-C was responsible for the plight of her family.

In response to her charges, a statement from the university said the selection committee did not select Lakshmi because a better candidate was preferred. Since she had filed a case, which is still pending and since the matter is subjudice, the university was not in a position to make comments of further decision,the statement said.

As far as the case of suspension of her husband, Kanagaraj, the Syndicate unanimously resolved to remove him from the service due to his drinking habit and both the matters were the collective decision of the selection committee and Syndicate, it said.