New Delhi (Agency): The growing power tussle between the Centre and opposition-ruled states over the management control of the University Grants Commission-funded universities in states threatens to ruin the sanctity of the country’s higher education system. Chief ministers of a number of opposition states and centrally-appointed governors there are at loggerheads with each other over appointment of university vice-chancellors (VCs). Both sides want political appointees of their choice. Recently, Tamil Nadu’s state assembly passed two bills seeking to transfer the governor’s power in appointing VCs of 13 state universities to the state government. Last year, West Bengal’s state legislative assembly passed a bill to make the chief minister the chancellor of all state-run universities, replacing the governor. The bill is yet to get the governor’s consent. The states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Rajasthan have laws that underline the need for concurrence between the state and the governor on the appointment of university VCs.
Lately, the issue has come to a head between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Governor C. V. Ananda Bose, a former bureaucrat turned Bharatiya Janata Party member in 2019, over the appointment of several senior professors as interim vice-chancellors of state-run universities. West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu urged the professors to turn down the governor’s appointments while the state is seeking legal opinion. The latest appointment of Professor Buddhadeb Sau, a BJP follower, as prestigious Jadavpur University’s interim vice-chancellor has taken the rift between the governor and the state government to a new high as Basu accused Ananda Bose of repeatedly flouting the UGC’s vice-chancellor appointment guidelines that require a minimum 10-year academic experience as a professor. Reportedly, Prof. Sau does not fully meet the criteria. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has ordered that an exercise be immediately instituted to appoint permanent VCs in the universities in West Bengal.
The Jadavpur University has been running headless since June 1 after the term of Prof. Suranjan Das, an eminent historian, ended. The state’s higher education department is yet to form a search committee for his successor. Notably, the university is listed among the world’s top institutes. Jadavpur University ranked 701-750 by the QS World University Rankings in 2023, and 182 in Asia. In normal circumstances, few could blame Governor Ananda Bose for appointing an interim VC at the university provided that it was in consultation with the state government and the selected candidate met the UGC criteria.
Last year, in November, a Supreme Court judgement said that university VCs must have served 10 years as university professor and his or her name should be recommended by a search-cum-selection committee. The apex court said a VC’s appointment has to be made from the names recommended by the search-cum-selection committee. The bench of Justices M.R. Shah and M.M. Sundresh referred to Section 10(3) of the University Act, 2019 which provided that the committee should prepare a list of three persons for appointment as VC based on their qualification and eligibility. The judgment dealt with a challenge by Professor Narendra Singh Bhandari, whose appointment as VC of Soban Singh Jeena University was earlier set aside by the Uttarakhand High Court. The contention against Bhandari’s appointment was that he did not have the requisite 10-year teaching experience as professor of the varsity. He had only 8.5 years’ experience as professor until he was appointed as member of the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission in 2017. However, he made the case that while serving the Commission he was on long leave and his lien continued on the post of professor. He was appointed VC in 2020.
“Merely because his lien was continued on the post of a professor, it cannot be said that he continued to teach and/or he was having the teaching experience during the period of lien. Even considering Article 319 of the Constitution, while working as a member of the Public Service Commission, he could not have rendered any other work on any other post,” Justice Shah, who wrote the judgment, held. The court also rejected his argument that he was supervising Ph.D scholars while serving as a member of the Public Service Commission, and this ought to be considered as part of his teaching experience. “Supervising Ph.D scholars cannot be said to be having teaching experience as a professor in the university,” the court said, upholding the High Court verdict. In a somewhat similar case, the apex court had earlier set aside the appointment of Dr. Rajasree M.S. as the VC of the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University, Thiruvananthapuram, in Kerala. The Supreme Court had underscored the importance of a VC’s selection from a panel of names recommended by a search committee of academically eminent persons.
Those who spent their working life in academia are concerned about the quality of functional heads of universities. In recent years, several vice-chancellors have been in the news though mostly for wrong reasons. Chandra Krishnamurthy, erstwhile VC of Pondicherry University, had to ingloriously quit in 2016. Her forced resignation was not purely a result of an agitation by students and faculty. Rather, the tipping point followed from the findings of a high-level probe, which found her guilty of academic fraud: involving claims about books she had not written and for listing a fictitious D. Lit degree in her CV.
Earlier, in Bengal, Abhijit Chakrabarti, vice-chancellor of Jadavpur University, was compelled to exit office. While his failure to meaningfully respond to a molestation case sparked a loud and energetic student agitation, he added fuel to the fire by getting students beaten up by the local police using his political clout. Last January, in an act of foresight or pre-emption, Rajasthan University vice-chancellor J. P. Singhal tendered his resignation a day before the High Court was to decide his fate over a petition filed by two Jaipur-based activists. The petitioners were questioning the academic worth of the VC, who had barely completed seven months in office.
Political intrusion in universities is nothing new in India. It began in the 1960s when Left parties and their student unions started vigorous campaigns to control educational institutions at all levels — from schools to universities. At that time, the fight was mostly between the Left and traditional Congress party affiliated student bodies. The situation changed in the 1990s after BJP started testing political power in states as well as at the Centre. The right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), affiliated to Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), came in the fore to control academic institutions through its followers among the students, teachers and employees. In fact, almost all state and central educational institutions are now under the influence of ruling political parties. Political parties and leaders are becoming uncomfortable with, if not insecure about, critical evaluation and independent voices that could come from universities and higher educational institutions. (IPA Service)
