Bengal search panels to oversee VC appointments may cause complications

By Sumanta Ray Chaudhuri

Kolkata, May 28 (SocialNews.XYZ) A recent ordinance issued by the West Bengal government reconstituting search committees for the appointment of vice-chancellors in state universities might lead to multiple complications, feel experts from the academic and education sectors.

The complications can be both in the process of appointments of vice chancellors by the search committees being challenged in court as had happened several times earlier, as well as in a fresh tussle between the Raj Bhavan and the State Secretariat.

As per the ordinance brought earlier this month, the five- member search committees will have one representative nominated by the chief minister, one by the state education department, one by the state higher education council, one by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and one by the Governor who by virtue of his chair is also the chancellor of all state universities. This new formation replaces the existing system of three-member search committees with one representative nominated by the education department, one by the concerned university and one by the Governor.

Surprisingly, in the new model of the five-member committees, there is no place for a representative from the state university for which the appointment of the vice-chancellor will be made.

Legal experts feel that this is the area that can create legal complications over a vice-chancellor appointed by a search committee. "Anyone can approach the court with a public interest litigation on the grounds that why the state university concerned will not have any say in the appointment of its own vice-chancellor," said Calcutta High Court counsel Kaushik Gupta.

Santanu Basu, a professor of economics with a college under the University of Calcutta, pointed out that the "UGC's proposal was that one acclaimed and independent educationist should be included as a member of the search committee. However, the new proposal remains silent on that matter."

Gupta agreed that in any probable PIL on the appointment of a V-C this point of a UGC-suggested independent educationist can be a solid ground for arguments by the petitioner. "Remember education is in the concurrent list under the Indian Constitution, which means that policies on the subject can be framed both by the Parliament as well as the state assemblies. However, if any state law goes against the central law, in that case the central law will prevail," Gupta explained.

While these are possible legal issues that might surface in the near future, political observers feel that this new formula of search committees might lead to a tussle between the Governor's House and the State Secretariat.

According to political analyst Sabyasachi Bandopadhyay, in the proposed search committee the state government has ensured that it has a numerical supremacy in the ratio of 3:2.

"The three representatives each from state education department, state higher secondary council and one from the chief minister's office will be actually state government faces in the search committees. The fourth will be from the UGC and the fifth will be recommended by the Governor. But there is a catch in the last option. The Governor sends his or her representative by virtue of being the chancellor of state universities. And as we well know a tiff is going on between the Raj Bhavan and the State Secretariat over a bill proposing replacing the Governor with the chief minister as the chancellor of state universities. If that happens, then the state government will have numerical supremacy in the search committees in the ratio of 4:1. So I can foresee another tussle between the Governor House and the State Secretariat on this issue," Bandopadhyay said.

The teachers' associations of the University of Calcutta and Jadavpur University have criticized the new formula of the search committees especially as regards to not having any representative from the university concerned.

Both the the Calcutta University Teachers Association general secretary Sanatan Chattopadhyay and his counterpart in the Jadavpur University Teachers' Association Partha Pratim Roy have claimed that this process for the vice-chancellors' appointment is bound to face legal challenges. Both said that the proposals of the UGC on the formation of search committees have been totally ignored in this ordinance.

In fact, the existing system of three-member search committees with one representative nominated by the education department, one by the state university concerned and one by the Governor, was also introduced by the current Trinamool Congress regime. In the previous Left Front dispensation, a three- member search committee had one representative of the UGC, one from the state university and one nominated by the Governor.

That system continued for three years even after the Trinamool Congress came to power for the first time in 2011. However, in 2014 after Partha Chatterjee became the state education minister he introduced the existing system which does not have any place for the UGC-nominated representative.

However, the vice chancellors appointed by search committees without a UGC representative faced legal challenges in different courts and the appointment or re-appointment of the vice- chancellors were cancelled by the courts.

Source: IANS