Former Vice Chancellors and well known academicians held a press conference on June 2 at Kolkata Press Club on the issue of appointment of interim Vice Chancellors of several State Universities.
| Photo Credit: Debasish Bhaduri
Accusing West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose of encouraging illegality by seeking weekly reports directly from Vice-Chancellors (V-Cs), 10 prominent academicians on Friday said the Governor should not bring V-Cs in the fight with the State government.
“If the Governor wants to fight the State government, he may, but he should not bring in the V-Cs in this,” said Om Prakash Mishra, prominent academician and former V-C of North Bengal University. The academicians, mostly V-Cs who were unceremoniously shunted out during when the Governor recently decided to appoint interim V-Cs, broke their silence with a press conference at the Kolkata Press Club.
“We are feeling insulted. We have been following rules which have been laid down and have been punished for following the rules,” said Deb Narayan Bandyopadhay, former V-C of Bankura University. The former V-Cs said that as per the West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Act, 2019, V-Cs cannot directly engage or communicate with the Governor who is the Chancellor of the State universities and only means of communication is through the State Higher Education Department.
The Raj Bhawan in April 2023 had issued a circular asking the V-Cs to send a weekly report and the State Education Department had objected to the circular. According to former V-Cs who addressed the media on Friday, only three V-Cs who submitted weekly reports to the Raj Bhawan have been retained and in other cases interim V-Cs have been appointed and those who were on the post earlier have been replaced. “We regret to inform you that V-Cs have never been treated like this previously and never ever the office of the Chancellor has stooped so low in the history of our State,” a press statement by the academicians said.
‘Did not intervene’
Senior academicians like Prof. Mishra said they were pained at the initiative of Bikash Bhawan, the headquarters of the State’s Education Department, as the department did not intervene when the Governor was appointing interim V-Cs.
“We expect to see a more proactive and effective role on the part of the Department of Higher Education for the protection of the dignity and honour of the V-Cs of the State universities. It is sad and regrettable,” the press statement said. On Thursday Education Minister Bratya Basu took to social media and said the department was considering legal opinion in connection with the appointments of interim V-Cs. The Minister also urged the newly appointed V-Cs not to accept these “illegal appointments”.
The former V-Cs have sought the intervention of the Chief Minister to resolve this impasse and defend the dignity of the V-Cs. Prof. Mishra said the academicians want to meet the Chief Minister over the issue and added the proposal to replace the Governor as Chancellor of the State universities would help resolve the imbroglio.
At loggerheads again
Asked whether he had consulted the State government on the interim V-Cs, the Governor said “consultation does not mean concurrence”. The new development is reminiscent of the conflict between the earlier Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and the Trinamool Congress government. The State government went ahead with appointing V-Cs without the approval of the then Governor and these appointments were set aside by courts. Governor Ananda Bose, who resumed charge in November 2022, had in the first few months after taking office, extended cooperation to the State government. In February 2023, while extending the tenure of V-Cs by three months the Governor had said education should be kept above the ambit of politics. However, the recent development relating to appointment of interim V-Cs has brought the Governor and the State government at loggerheads..