DVAC sleuths get five days to interrogate Ganapathi

COIMBATORE: A special court for DVAC cases in the city on Monday granted the police five-day custody of suspended Bharathiar University vice-chancellor A Ganapathi, who was arrested on February 3 while accepting Rs 1 lakh and four postdated cheques for Rs 29 lakh from an assistant professor. The petition filed by the police seeking custody of the vice-chancellor came up for hearing before special court judge John Minon. Ganapathi was escorted from the Coimbatore central prison by the city armed reserve police and produced before the court. When the judge asked Ganapathi during the hearing about the police custody petition filed by the DVAC, he replied that he had given enough details to the investigation agency. Hence, he was not ready to go for police custody, Ganapathi said. He then started singing hymns from ‘Thiruvasagam’ inside the court hall. However, prosecution counsel Sivakumar argued that the DVAC wants to investigate the vice-chancellor and requested the court to provide five days of custody. DVAC deputy superintendent of police Ramesh told the court that they were not able to collect the four blank cheque leaves from Ganapathi. The DVAC want to take him under its custody to recover the cheque leaves and to investigate him on misuse of power in recruitment of teaching staff, he said.Ganapathi’s counsel C Gnanabharathi said the affidavit filed by the investigation agency does not contain relevant information and the police failed to produce the details of the cheque leaves before the court when they submitted the remand report and seizure to the court. They also failed to mention what was the purpose of the police custody.“The DVAC sleuths conducted search for 16 hours at the residence of Ganapathi and they could not seize any cheque leaves. After the search, they did not seal the house and it was a fake case. So, the court should not grant police custody,” said Gnanabharathi.Sivakumar argued that the investigation agency had submitted the numbers of the cheque leaves and serial numbers of the currency notes in the court before the arrest. After hearing arguments from both sides, the court gave the police five-day custody of the vice-chancellor. The court also ordered the police to produce Ganapathi before it on February 16.