Mita Mukherjee

Bengal education minister, Bratya Basu has accused the state governor, who is also the chancellor of all state-aided universities of creating a stalemate in colleges and universities by not cooperating with the state education department on the issue of appointing vice-chancellors despite a directive of the Supreme Court.

Basu said that he met the governor CV Ananda Bose on March 12 and had held an hour-long meeting to discuss mainly the issue of appointment of vice-chancellors but the discussion was far from being “successful” because the governor is not ready to cooperate with the state government on the matter.

“ It is a waste of time discussing the issue with him. He has not honoured the state government’s opinion,” Basu said at a press conference held under the banner of West Bengal College and University Professors’ Association (WBCUPA), an organization of teachers of college and university teachers affiliated with the ruling Trinamul Congress. Basu is the president of the organization.

“A stalemate is continuing on the campuses because of the chancellor,” the minister said.

According to the minister, the issue of appointing vice-chancellors is now subjudice before the Supreme Court. Following an order of the Supreme Court asking the chief minister and the governor to sit across the table to resolve the crisis prevailing in the universities, the chief minister Mamata Banerjee visited the governor at Raj Bhavan.

Later, the education minister too met the governor. But the minister said there has been no solution to the problem about which the discussions were held. The discussions did not bring about any solution because the governor had disregarded the education department’s proposals. For example, the state government had sent a list of names of academics for appointing the interim vice-chancellors but the state government was not consulted before selecting the vice-chancellors.   

The state-aided universities, at present, are headed by interim vice-chancellors appointed by the chancellor. All of them were given the appointments without consulting the state government, an official of the higher education department.

The state government had not accepted the appointments. The administrative and academic functioning in most of the 31 universities where the interim vice-chancellors are in office has been affected because of the tussle between the governor and the state government.

The government had challenged the authority of the chancellor to appoint vice-chancellors before the Supreme Court.

He said that he believed that the ongoing deadlock could come to an end with the intervention of the court.

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