State government nominee to replace UGC nominee for the selection of a vice-chancellor.

Updated on: Friday, September 28, 2012

In what might stoke fears of a return to the much talked about dalatantra during the Left Front regime, the Mamata Banerjee government on Thursday brought amends to the West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Act 2011. According to the new law, a state government nominee will replace the UGC nominee in the search panel for the selection of a vice-chancellor.

While moving the amendment, state education minister Bratya Basu argued that the existing search committee includes the chancellor's nominee, the UGC nominee, and nominee of the university and has no representation of the state government.

It struck the chief minister after the chancellor chose renowned academics Anil Kakodkar, U N Anandmurthy and Gobardhan Mehta - all of them from other states - as his nominee in the search committee to select the vice-chancellors for three universities -Calcutta, Rabindra Bharati and Jadavpur.

Since these three VCs were selected according to the earlier law, the state if necessary may ask the governor to reconsider an option to reappoint the VCs with a state government nominee in the search panel.

The education minister held that there should also be a representation of illustrious academics from Bengal in the search committee. "There is no need to fear about dalatantra. So far, a chancellor's nominee in the search panel has never been an educationist from the state. This is what we have found out during the appointments of three VCs till now," said Basu.

Basu said though they are academics of excellent repute, they do not belong to the state. "There are educationists who are of the same stature or even better in West Bengal. They can now be nominated in the search committee. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee wanted us to make the amendment to ensure eminent personalities related to education in West Bengal also have a say," he added.

Democratic Socialist Party legislator Prabodh Chandra Biswas criticised the government for bringing an amendment within three months of passing the bill. "This shows there is a lack of coordination between decisions and its effective implementation," he said.

Basu retorted back saying, "During the Left Front's tenure, the University Act was amended 50 times. We have done it only once. We still have 49 more chances remaining to amend the act further."

The government also brought amendment to the selection of deans. There will be a dean for each and every faculty council for postgraduate studies in the university. They will be appointed by the VC on recommendation of the selection committee duly constituted for this purpose. The panel will comprise a government nominee who will be an eminent academician not related to the university concerned and one not below the rank of a professor of any other university.

The amendment has also barred student representatives in the faculty councils from participating in meetings where confidential matters relating to conduct of examinations, checking of answerscripts and publication of results is likely to be discussed.

State government nominee to replace UGC nominee for the selection of a vice-chancellor.

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