After over a year’s delay, SU finally announces election to senate body
Following the delay in conducting the elections, Nehal Shukla, Dr Bhavin Kothari, Bharat Ramanuj — all syndicate members whose term had expired — moved the Gujarat High Court seeking direction to the university to conduct senate election and reinstate them.
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According to the SU statute, senate elections are to be conducted every five years and such elections have to be conducted before the term of the outgoing body expires. The last election was conducted in 2017 and hence, the next election was due in 2022. After a delay of more than a year and being dragged to court, the Saurashtra University (SU) in Rajkot has finally issued a notification for election to four of 44 seats of the senate, its apex decision body.
University officers said the election to the rest of the seats will also be notified in due time. However, the university specified that the term of the seats going to polls will be deemed to have begun from May 23, 2022. Hence, those who win the July 22 election will have effective tenure of less than four years instead of the statutory five years.
Following the delay in conducting the elections, Nehal Shukla, Dr Bhavin Kothari, Bharat Ramanuj — all syndicate members whose term had expired — moved the Gujarat High Court seeking direction to the university to conduct senate election and reinstate them.
The SU notification of election came on a day when the HC was to hear the plea. “As the SU lawyer filed a sick note, no hearing took place. However, during a previous hearing early this month, the HC had expressed its displeasure at the pace with which SU was moving to conduct election after having submitted an affidavit in January this year, assuring the court that senate election will be completed by August this year,” Dr Kothari told The Indian Express.
However, the SU registrar said there was no delay in conducting the election. “Work for conducting elections was pending for the past five years. But you can’t say that the election has been delayed,” Parekh told The Indian Express, adding, “We shall also issue a notification for the remainder of syndicate seats in due course of time.”
SU registrar Amit Parekh issued a notification setting July 22 as the date of polling for electing two senate members each to the constituency of secondary school teachers and secondary school principals. Polling will be conducted in one college each in Rajkot, Morbi , Jamnagar, Surendranagar and Amreli — the districts falling under the SU jurisdiction, from 11 am to 5 pm, the notification said. It also specified that the electoral rolls updated till January 1 will be used for conducting polls.
SU Senate has around 302 seats of which only 44 go to polls, while the rest are ex officio positions or held by government nominees. Among those that go to polls include 24 seats of college and university teachers’ constituency, 13 seats of registered graduates’ constituency, three of donors’ constituency, two each of secondary school teachers and school principals.
The Rajkot Municipal Corporation nominates one member. Similarly, five district panchayats in SU’s jurisdiction nominate one member and so do municipalities of these five districts.
According to the SU statute, senate elections are to be conducted every five years and such elections have to be conducted before the term of the outgoing body expires. The last election was conducted in 2017 and hence, the next election was due in 2022. However, as SU didn’t conduct the polls, it led to the disqualification of some of its members as members of syndicate or the varsity’s executive committee by May last year.
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