Bengal Governor appoints 11 interim V-Cs, govt calls it ‘illegal’

“I came to know from the media that the Honorable Governor has appointed vice-chancellors in 11 universities today. This appointment was made without any consultation with the office, which is completely contrary to the current rules for the appointment of vice-chancellors and is illegal,” Basu tweeted.

“In this unprecedented situation, we are taking legal advice on what course of action to take in the future. All the newly appointed vice-chancellors are respectfully requested by the Higher Education Department to reject this appointment,” Basu added.

Earlier in the day, Raj Bhavan issued a press release, saying that Governor Bose, in his capacity as chancellor of universities, has started appointing interim vice-chancellors to all the universities where vacancies exist.

The 11 state universities where new interim vice-chancellors have been appointed are the University of Kalyani, the University of Burdwan, The Sanskrit College and University, Sidho Kanho Birsha University, Kazi Nazrul University, Dakshin Dinajpur University, the University of Calcutta, Jadavpur University, Bankura University, Baba Saheb Ambedkar Education University, and Diamond Harbour Women’s University.

“The Chancellor (Bose) seems to have applied his ‘middle-path’ approach in the appointment of vice-chancellors too. The minister of education (Basu) recommended a blanket extension of all the interim vice-chancellors. The Chancellor has extended the services of only those vice-chancellors who complied with the instructions to send activity reports to the Chancellery for review. Those who did not comply with the instructions are not considered for an extension as independent evaluations reveal that their value addition to the university remains vague and some of them were indifferent to the well-being of students and a few indulged in factional fights within the campus,” the Raj Bhavan release said.

In April, Governor Bose had asked vice-chancellors of all the state universities to “submit a weekly activity report to him”, and to take his prior “approval before taking any decisions related to finances”.

The state government opposed the move, saying the Governor had no legal standing to do so.

After the vice-chancellors failed to follow his instructions, Bose wrote to them on May 23 reminding them to send weekly reports. As he failed to get any response, the Governor on May 26 issued show-cause notices to the vice-chancellors of six universities.

Meanwhile, the Opposition BJP welcomed the Governor’s move and slammed the TMC government for “targeting the constitutional head of the state”. “The TMC government did not follow the UGC guidelines and violated rules in the appointment of vice-chancellors without taking into consideration the opinion of the Governor who happens to be the Chancellor of all state universities. A state of anarchy cannot remain prevalent in a university. Therefore, the Governor has taken steps to ensure normalcy in such institutes of higher education. The Governor is within his limits to take such a decision and in the best interest of the students, teachers, and overall education sector,” BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.

“Education minister has urged the vice-chancellors not to accept the offer made by the Governor. This is against the rules, and the education minister cannot ask them to do so,” the BJP leader added.