Bengal Education Minister Accuses Governor of Stalling Vice-Chancellor Appointments Despite Supreme Court Directive

The Bengal governor, who also serves as the ex-officio chancellor of state-aided universities, was accused by Education Minister Bratya Basu on Saturday of refusing to work with the state government on the selection of vice-chancellors in defiance of a Supreme Court order.

Chancellor C.V. Ananda Bose has not been collaborating with the education department, Basu added, whether it comes to the matter of selecting full-term or interim venture capitalists through a search committee.

Recently, the minister met with Bose to discuss the appointment of interim vice chancellors. However, the chancellor is said to be the reason the action has failed to produce any results.

The chancellor, according to the minister, is to blame for the impasse on campuses.

The Supreme Court is now debating the issue of designating VCs. In this case, the chancellor and the chief minister met per the Supreme Court's mandate. We then visited Raj Bhavan and had a meeting with the governor. There was the attorney general as well. However, the issue for which the meeting was called for has not advanced, the minister of education stated to reporters on Saturday at the Calcutta Press Club.

"We don't see how this impasse can be broken without the Supreme Court getting involved. We thus raised the problem at the press conference," he continued.

Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister, met with Bose at Raj Bhavan on December 4 to talk about "pending problems" related to VC appointments. Three days before to her visit, the chief minister and the governor were urged to reconcile their disagreements over the matter at hand by the highest court in the country.

On March 12, the governor and the minister of education met.

The next day, Attorney General R. Venkatramani and Education Secretary Manish Jain met at Raj Bhavan.

According to a higher education department official, Basu sent the chancellor a list of university academics who may be named temporary venture capitalists.

Currently, the chancellor appoints authorized/officiating vice chancellors to lead the institutions, purportedly without consulting the education department.

Since then, the department has declined to acknowledge the authorized VCs' legitimacy.

The majority of the thirty-one universities are enmeshed in the impasse between the department and the chancellor. Deadlock has resulted from this on the campuses.

In a plea for special leave filed with the supreme court, the government contested Bose's right to select officiating VCs on his own.

Minister Basu responded, "The chancellor has not honoured any of the commitments that he made," when asked why his meeting with the chancellor had not produced any outcomes.The chancellor stated he would have talks with us and asked for a list (of names).

"After that, he didn't have any conversations with us," Basu stated.

The chancellor's office responded to an email this publication sent with the subject line "Your mail is received and is being examined".

According to Minister Basu, the education department could have named temporary vice consuls on its own in this case. However, that was not what we wanted to do. Our goal is to put our trust in the Supreme Court.

On February 29, the minister declared that because the delay was causing "disturbances, intolerance, and anarchy" on campuses, the state government would like the Supreme Court to issue a final ruling on the appointment of VCs.

He declared on Saturday that "I still believe the court can end the impasse."

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Press Time staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.