3 min readPuneMar 27, 2026 09:48 PM IST
After aggressive demands by Senate members, professor Aditya Abhyankar, head of the Technology Department at Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) was sent on compulsory leave by Vice Chancellor Suresh Gosavi on Friday.
Senate members raised allegations of corruption in a project carried out by the SPPU Technology department for the state’s Tribal Development Ministry in 2017-2018.
A five-member committee will be formed to investigate the corruption allegations. Senate member Vinayak Ambekar, presenting a bunch of papers to the Vice Chancellor, said, “I have smoking gun evidence that the purchases made by the Technology department were corrupt transactions. There was overpaying.”
Around 50 protesters from organisations gathered outside the SPPU Main building to protest. (Express Photo by Arul Horizon)
The same allegations regarding corruption in the Technology Department were raised by Ambekar in the previous Senate meet as well. RTI activist Vivek Velankir has also alleged that these transactions involved corruption.
Proceedings delayed
Members also stalled proceedings and did not let the Senate meet commence with the Vice Chancellor’s address over the issue of a forensic audit promised in the previous meet. In the October meet, the Vice Chancellor had assured the house that a forensic audit of financial transactions of the university would be carried out and presented before the next meet. However, no such audit has been carried out yet.
Vice Chancellor Gosavi said that a committee to probe the need for the audit had been formed in February 2026, leading to strong reactions by Senate members. Senate member Prasenjit Fadnavis said, “We had been assured that the audit would be conducted but it has not been. Who is responsible for this?” Finally, the Vice Chancellor assured that the forensic audit tender process would be completed in one month.
Post lunch, when Gosavi tried to continue with proceedings to present the university budget for the year, Senate members demanded that adjournment motions, over 15 in number, be taken up. While these motions were being discussed, barbs were exchanged between the Gosavi and Management Council members Bageshree Manthalkar and Sagar Vaidya.
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Manthalkar and Vaidya raised disputes in functioning between them and Gosavi, while the Vice Chancellor replied that he was being targeted by the specific group of members. The budget will now be presented on the second day of the Senate on March 28.
Protests by various organisations
Around 50 protesters from organisations like the National Student’s Union of India, Shiv Sena UBT’s Yuva Sena, Azad Samaj Party (Youth Wing), Republican Bahujan Student Union (Athawale), Chatra Bharati, University Student Struggle Action Committee, and Student Helping Hands, gathered outside the SPPU Main building to protest for various reasons like stopping “financial extraction” under the name of extra credit courses, raising the demand for an investigation into corruption in the university, and completion of the Marathi Language Centre at the University.
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