AMU suspends Teachers' Association secretary for 'gross misconduct'

Aligarh: Secretary of the Aligarh Muslim University Teachers' Association (AMUTA) was on Monday suspended by the varsity on charges of gross misconduct and an inquiry has been ordered against him.

Mustafa Zaidi, who is also an associate professor in the Department of Library and Information Sciences, was suspended by the university on charges of gross misconduct, an official notification said.

An enquiry has been ordered against him and he has been asked not to leave Aligarh without prior permission of the Vice-Chancellor, the notification added.

Earlier on October 20, the university had issued him a show cause notice accusing him of dereliction of duty and skipping teaching assignment on October 13, when the AMUTA held a dharna at the campus to press for their demand for a CBI enquiry into alleged irregularities in admissions.

Vice-Chancellor Gen (Retd) Zameer Uddin Shah on Monday termed the allegations of irregularities in admissions as "false" and raised question on AMUTA's intentions.

"These allegations are false. They are being circulated by the people who are opposed to the present Controller of Examination. They are emanating from people who are themselves aspiring for the Controller's chair," he said.

He also termed as "baseless" AMUTA's allegations that he had not responded positively to its demand for dialogue on the issue for past four months.

"Immediately after they (AMUTA) were elected this year, I invited them to my office. They, however, insisted I should meet them alone and were not prepared to hold discussions in front of the Pro-Vice Chancellor and the Registrar. The precondition was unacceptable to me," he said.

Denying allegations that funds meant for flood victims in Kashmir were misused, he said, "We have fully utilized each and every rupee that had been donated by teachers last year."

Shah said the victims who lost their homes were directly paid a sum of about Rs 1.25 lakh each from the fund and added that the University had made direct payment to the victims because there were doubts if AMUTA would be able to handover the relief in an effective manner.