Kasturirangan's nomination to selection panel an oversight:VC

Delhi University's outgoing Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh today played down the allegation of conflict of interest in appointment of K Kasturirangan into a panel for selecting his successor which has irked the HRD ministry, saying it would have been an "oversight".
Singh, who retires on October 28, asserted that he has "no regrets", though his tenure saw the massive controversy over Four Year Undergraduate Programme with the Ministry even issuing a show cause notice to a Delhi University VC for the first time following complaints against him.
He also said that he will not continue beyond his retirement date as is being speculated and is not up for any new assignments.

The latest controversy is on nomination of former ISRO Chief K Kasturirangan to the selection panel by DU despite him being an honorary professor at the university.
HRD ministry is understood to have asked the President who is the varsity Visitor to direct Singh to proceed on compulsory leave but had to withdraw the request hours later apparently as Rasthrapati Bhavan was not inclined towards taking an action against the VC as he had only few weeks left in office.
The ministry is also learned to have asked DU to suggest another name replacing Kasturirangan.

"The nomination of the members was discussed at length in the DU's Executive Council. Somehow it (conflict of interest) seems to have escaped the attention of the Council and I don't really know until I hear from the ministry what is the exact issue," he told PTI in an interview.

Interestingly, Singh himself chairs the EC meeting and is the final authority on the decisions taken.
"I don't know if something has been communicated to the university so far, if they do it we will do the needful immediately. I will have to get in touch with the government to take further steps regarding the same," he said.
A well known mathematics professor, whose father also served as VC of Allahabad University, Singh said that he has no inclination of taking any extension and will not accept it even if offered.