Ghanshyam Solanki 'etches' his name in M S University's history!

VADODARA: Associate professor of M S University's faculty of law Ghanshyam Solanki, who has now etched his name in the history of M S University with the 'itching episode', has a controversial past.
Although Solanki, the suspended head of department of law, has made a u-turn after confessing that he had smeared the substance that caused itching to MSU vice-chancellor (VC) professor Yogesh Singh during a national seminar on Saturday, it isn't the first flip flop in his academic career.
In fact, only last year when he was officiating dean of faculty of law, his role had come under scanner after he made an infamous flip flop in the admission case of mayor of Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) Jyoti Pandya.
The faculty of law had cancelled Pandya's admission in July 2010 after it had came to light that her application had documents related to diploma in homeopathic and medicine and surgery (DHMS) and MA (history), but she had not submitted documents of bachelors' course which is mandatory for getting admission in LLB. Solanki in March last year had himself admitted this goof up. However, later, he wrote a letter to Pandya stating that her admission in LLB course has been "sustained".
When mayor's admission controversy was at its peak, MSU officials wrote several letters seeking clarity from Solanki on whether Pandya was still a student of the faculty or her admission was cancelled.
Solanki neither gave a clear reply nor did he submit all the documents that were demanded by the university admission regarding Pandya's admission.
It was after this controversy that Solanki's academic downfall started as the then vice-chancellor of MSU Ramesh Goyal removed Solanki as officiating dean and instead appointed an officer on special duty at the faculty.
A probe committee appointed by Goyal also observed that Solanki had wrongly written the letter addressed to mayor as in technical terms, Pandya had neither paid fees nor she had appeared for the exams after taking admission in LLB.
The committee report had also pointed out that despite existence of equivalence committee at the university level, Solanki did not refer the admission case to the equivalence committee neither he consulted the university.
Despite receiving flak, Solanki remained shielded by the BJP-RSS group, which has majority in both the senate and syndicate bodies of MSU.
In 2005, he was caught on paper when he changed marks of a girl student by applying white ink on the first page (statement of marks) of the supplementary answer sheet. In this case, the fourth semester LLB student had failed after receiving 47 marks in Solanki's subject.
But after the girl applied for re-assessment (not re-checking - where the entire answer sheet is checked), Solanki changed her marks to 57.
After the then syndicate member Dr I I Pandya brought this to the notice of MSU administration, Solanki was not given examination work for second half of 2005 exam. In fact, as many as 51 students out of total 90 students enrolled at the faculty cleared their exams through re-assessment in 2005!
When the question of this malpractice was raised in the university's annual senate meeting, the then MSU VC had even assured senate members that Solanki will be discontinued as in-charge dean. But it never happened.