Senate ignores students

In the absence of a vice-chancellor, the pro vice-chancellor entitled to conduct Senate proceedings.

In the first question hour, the Senate took up 100-odd questions raised by Senate member Jaswant Thakker. When the meeting met again after a break, only some 25-odd Senate members sat. However, the meeting was adjourned for lack of quorum.

The Senate, however, unanimously passed the university8217;s Rs 17.81 crore budget for 1999-2000. The Senate will meet again on Tuesday.

Interestingly, student Senate member did not get a chance to raise any question. Shastri assured them that they would be given a chance once the question house was over. The chance never came, as the second session was adjourned.

One of the questions raised by Thakker was about the alleged harassment of professors of Sahajanand College by its principal, Madhubhai Patel.

Thakker said that professors had been served with over 500 notices by the college, and that six police complaints had been lodged against them. He also sought to know what the inquiry committee appointed to look into the college8217;s problems had done so far.

Besides, he sought to know why Patel was entrusted with examination work even though he was once debarred forever from examination work by the Senate.

However, uncertainty looms over students. University sources said that the process of selecting examiners, paper setters and completing other formalities hasn8217;t even begun. In other universities in the state, it has either already been completed or is nearing completion. Although Desai has said his decision won8217;t affect exams, doubts remain whether a headless GU can complete the formalities in time.

In his resignation letter to Chancellor S.S. Bhandari, Desai had expressed inability to work because of lack of co-operation, and even obstruction, from senior functionaries. Although the chancellor is understood to have asked Desai to continue, he is unwilling. 8220;The tension at the university was getting the better of me,8221; he said.

In fact, Desai has alleged that since his appointment in November, he has been a victim of 8220;undeclared no-co-operation from Shastri8217;s followers. As president of the Gujarat University Area Teachers Association, Shastri commands enormous clout among college teachers.

At the very first meeting of the university syndicate which Desai summoned, Shastri followers questioned his right to preside over it. Later, they stayed away from meetings of universities bodies so these could not be held for want of quorum. There are enough indications that they wanted to use the Senate meeting scheduled for Tuesday to humiliate Desai.