West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose on Sunday appointed interim vice-chancellors for six state-run universities, escalating tensions with the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government that has been criticising such “unilateral” decisions.
The Governor named Professor Achintya Saha as the interim VC of Murshidabad University, Professor B B Parida for MG University, Professor Nikhil Chandra Ray for Coochbehar Panchanan University and Professor Rathin Bandyopadhyay for Alipurduar University, Professor Dilip Maity as interim VC of Biswa Bangla University and retired IPS officer C M Raveendran as interim VC of North Bengal University, reports PTI.
Bose is the Chancellor of state-run universities in West Bengal.
On the latest development, the Educationists Forum, a pro-TMC platform of former VCs and senior university professors, described the appointments as an “open defiance of the power and authority of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India”, while accusing the governor of continuing “illegalities in the sphere of higher education”.
In a statement, forum spokesperson Om Prakash Mishra said, “Today, he has once again nominated persons of his choice in a number of universities even while the entire subject matter of this type of nomination is under challenge in a special leave petition filed by the State of West Bengal in the Supreme Court.”
This is a direct affront to the legal process, the Acts of the concerned universities and constitutes a direct challenge to the authority of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, the statement by the forum said.
“The academic community is shocked and surprised to see the names of academicians nominated by the Hon’ble Chancellor. All those nominated by His Excellency are interestingly either from outside the state or from outside the ambit of the Higher Education Department of West Bengal,” the statement added, as quoted by PTI.
Earlier in September, following appointments to other state-run universities, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged that the Governor was interfering in the state’s education system and threatened to sit on a dharna outside Raj Bhavan if he continued to function in the same manner.
She had said that the VCs must be picked from the names suggested by the state government-appointed five-member search committee and further threatened to block funding to all universities that followed the Governor’s directions.
“If you interfere with any university or if any university or college takes your order, I will create economic obstructions. Tit for tat. No compromise. Let me see how you pay the salaries of university staff. We never interfere in the education system,” Banerjee had said.