Delhi University rejects 101 names picked by government for governing bodies of 28 colleges

Dean of Colleges Devesh Sinha said, “I met Manish Sisodia a week ago. He asked for more names and we will be sending the list soon. The Election Commission had unanimously rejected the earlier panel, so we sent a list of 157 names to the government.”

Following protests by teachers over not being paid salaries, Sisodia approved the release of funds on request from the Delhi University Teachers’ Association. (File/Photo)

Delhi University has removed names of 101 people selected by the Delhi government to be on the governing bodies of 28 colleges, The Sunday Express had found.

A governing body takes key college decisions such as appointment of faculty and budget allocation. It has 15 members, including the principal, two university teachers and two teachers of the college. Five members are nominated by the government, while the remaining five are DU representatives whose names are approved by the government.

It is the last category that has now become a flashpoint.

The DU administration had, in May, sent the government a list of 386 names. Of these, 140 (five for each of the 28 colleges) were to be chosen for the governing bodies. The government sent back the list in the last week of the month. But instead of approving the names, DU’s executive council (EC) rejected 101, and decided to send the government a fresh list of 157 names, so it could again choose 140.

This decision — to narrow down the list of names to choose from — has irked the government. “We have written to DU and told them this small list is not acceptable at all. All the names we had chosen have been removed. The only thing we are saying is that we want more names, with greater and wider variety,” Atishi Marlena, advisor to Education Minister Manish Sisodia, said.

According to an official, the back-and-forth arises from the fact that the DU administration did not consult the EC before sending the 386-name list to the government. It was only when the government sent back 140 names that the EC raised objections, and decided to send a fresh list to the government.

Dean of Colleges Devesh Sinha said, “I met Manish Sisodia a week ago. He asked for more names and we will be sending the list soon. The EC had unanimously rejected the earlier panel, so we sent a list of 157 names to the government.”

Who was removed

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Of the 101 names that were removed, 35 teachers were from JNU. Of these, more than 50 per cent belonged to either the School of Social Sciences or School of International Studies. Some prominent names removed include Archana Prasad, against whom an FIR was registered by Chhattisgarh Police for the alleged murder of a tribal, former JNU V-C Sudhir Sopory and former Censor board member Ira Bhaskar.

The new list sent to the government has 16 professors from JNU — four from the administration and the rest from the schools of science, environment and Sanskrit.

Other prominent names removed by DU include sociologist Dipankar Gupta, educationists Shailaja Chandra and Krishna Kumar, musician Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, musician Anup Jalota, economist Harsha Vardhana Singh, and teachers from the South Asian University and Jamia Millia Islamia.
The tussle over the governing bodies had earlier prompted the government to freeze funds for 12 colleges that are fully funded by it in August. The 16 others receive five per cent grant from the Delhi government.

Following protests by teachers over not being paid salaries, Sisodia approved the release of funds on request from the Delhi University Teachers’ Association.