Cal HC directs Raj Bhavan to disclose status of Bill making CM the Chancellor

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday directed Raj Bhavan to submit an affidavit disclosing the status of the West Bengal University Laws (Amendment ) Bill 2022 passed by the state Assembly in June 2022.

A petitioner had filed a PIL inquiry proposing that the Governor give assent to the mentioned Bill. The petitioner cited Article 200 arguing that the Governor had three options under the said Article of Indian Constitution.

First was to assent to the Bill, the second was to withhold the assent and send it back to the Assembly with or without suggestions for reconsideration, and the third was to send it to the President of India.

The petitioner alleged that in this case none of the three options were exercised. Citing Article 163 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner argues that in the matter of assent to a Bill the Governor is required to act by the advice of the Council of Ministers.

Meanwhile, to speed up the decision-making process in the state university system the Governor in his capacity as Chancellor has introduced what is termed as ‘Speed Programme’ which denotes a simplified procedure for easy and effective decision-making.

The Chancellor has constituted a 25-teacher selection committee, and a vice-chancellor (V-C) committee to identify the backlog in the university administration and to suggest ways for revamping the system that was set up by the Chancellor.

A monitoring cell has also been set up at Raj Bhavan for concurrent evaluation. The V-Cs can contact this cell 24x7 on 03322001642 and email grievances to [email protected].

Also, the state Higher Education department claimed on Tuesday that the statement made by Governor C V Ananda Bose, recently that the former interim V-Cs had confessed before him in confidence that they had resigned due to intimidation by the Higher Education department, was false and were made with the intent to malign the image of the department.

On September 7, the state Higher Education department wrote to former interim V-Cs of five universities, including two of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology (MAKAUT) seeking their reply through e-mail in connection with a video clipping received from social media purportedly issued by Chancellor (C V Ananda Bose) that alleged that they had been made to resign under intimidation from the Education department.