The Jesuit missionary run Loyola college in Chennai is a ‘well known’ educational institution in Tamil Nadu. But its still a matter of debate to say whether it’s the academic excellence or the anti-national, anti-Hindu activities that the college is famous for! Also, there are several sexual assault complaints filed against senior officials of Loyola, which are at various stages of judicial processing.
Once again, the Loyola institution got caught in a serious allegation. But this is related to misuse of funds granted for research purposes. Many might have heard of ‘University Grants Commission’ or UGC as it is commonly known. It’s a central government body that comes under the department of Higher education. The main role of UGC is to coordinate, determine and maintain the standards of ‘Higher Education’. UGC also offers financial support to premium institutions to do various high-end researches.
LIFE (Loyola Institute OF Frontier Energy) was a department of Loyola college, which was meant to carryout researches in multiple fields such as environment, biology and energy. It was started in the year 1995, with Fr. Francis P. Xavier as its first director. The researches needed advanced equipment for its laboratories which had to be imported from foreign countries. UGC offered 10 crore rupees, to support Loyola’s LIFE research. With that money, many equipments were bought. But it was said that locally made second grade faulty machines had been purchased for less money, than the estimated cost which went to the pocket of few Loyola professors.
These allegations cannot be considered baseless because it was actually raised by the college’s former Principal Albert Muthumalai. It was during his tenure the above mentioned, scandal took place. Once during a review meeting Albert Muthumalai received a complaint from a staff, that the supposedly imported machine was faulty and not working properly. Immediately he set up an enquiry commission to find ‘What went wrong?’. After investigating for a month, the committee found out the scam. It was also found that, Selvanayagam a zoology professor was the one behind the scam. When Albert Muthumalai tried to take action on him, he was interrupted by Fr. Francis P. Xavier, the head of LIFE department.
Then principal was also warned of consequences and was forced to not take action. But after retirement, Albert Muthumalai has recorded the above events in his memoir published in the name as ‘IRAI SIRAGUGALIL KANINDHA SILUVAIGAL’. I found the overview of the above mentioned incident. Without wasting time I called the Rev. Albert Muthumalai and confirmed the allegations that he had recorded in his memoir.
It was a shocking revelation, that Selvanayagam, then zoology professor who was accused by Albert Muthumalai is the current head of research department of Loyola engineering college and Francis P. Xavier, the one who helped Selvanayagam holds the office of Rector, which is the most powerful position in the college.
Based on the above information, a complaint has been filed by me to UGC, asking for the immediate investigation into the matter and punish the guilty.
Though few medias in TN covered this issue, it was pretty much ignored by big medias of TN. Hope appropriate action is taken.