Calcutta High Court. , Photo Credit: Sushant Petronobish
The Calcutta High Court has set aside the West Bengal Education Department’s decision to re-appoint 24 vice-chancellors of state-aided universities on the ground that these appointments were “unconscionable and without authority of law”.
These appointments were made without the approval of the governor, who is the ex-officio chancellor of state-aided universities. These appointments were made during the tenure of former West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar.
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According to state higher education department officials, the order is unlikely to have an impact on the current situation as the current governor, CV Anand Bose, had accepted the resignations of 24 VCs a few weeks ago. and has been given an extension of three months.
“Appointment of respondent Vice-Chancellors who have been appointed, re-appointed, whose tenure has been extended or who have been given additional charge by order of the State Government or who do not have the minimum eligibility condition or who have been appointed without following due process, The appointment of the Vice-Chancellor is untenable and without authority of law. Therefore, he has no right to continue as Vice-Chancellor on the basis of such indefinite orders,” a division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj observed on 14 Said in the decision given on March.
State Education Minister Bratya Basu said that at present the appointment of vice-chancellors is done with the consent of the governor.
“We are in complete agreement with the observations of the Hon’ble High Court that without the consent of the Governor, the State Government cannot appoint the Vice-Chancellors. At present, the Vice-Chancellors who are appointed are with the consent of the Governor. He said that in the past when Jagdeep Dhankhar was the governor of the state, the situation was different and it cannot be compared with the present situation.
The order came in response to a PIL filed by Anupam Bera in April 2022. The bench, in its 46-page judgement, said, “It will not be in the interest of the students and the administration of the universities to continue with the related issues. the respondents as Vice-Chancellor once it is found that he has been appointed without following due process and contrary to the provisions of the Act and that too by an authority not competent to appoint”.
A few weeks back, Governor Bose had resolved the appointments issue by accepting the resignations of 24 vice-chancellors after a long meeting with the education minister and then appointing them for a period of three months. Mr. Bose had said that “education should be treated as a conflict-free zone” and the decision was in the spirit of “constructive cooperation”.
Lawyers representing the petitioner, who has filed the PIL before the High Court, said they may approach the court challenging the governor’s order extending the three-month extension to vice-chancellors.
Prior to the High Court order, the Supreme Court had set aside the reappointment of Calcutta University Vice Chancellor Sonali Chakraborty Banerjee as “void and non-existent in law”.