Eight West Bengal universities get permanent vice-chancellors after Supreme Court nod

Kolkata: Appointment letters were issued on Thursday to the permanent vice-chancellors of eight state universities, weeks after the Supreme Court cleared their names after recording a consensus between the state government and the Chancellor.

In its January 16 order, the apex court noted the agreement between the two sides and requested the Chief Minister to forward the agreed names to the Chancellor for issuance of appointment notifications. The court observed that the stalemate over appointments in 36 state universities was being resolved in phases on the recommendations of a Search-cum-Selection Committee headed by former Chief Justice of India U U Lalit.

Although Governor C V Ananda Bose had in January announced the names of vice-chancellors for six universities, formal appointment letters were not issued because the relevant files were not forwarded by Raj Bhavan, sources said.

Approval for Diamond Harbour Women’s University and Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University was received later, further delaying the process. The letters were issued after the files were processed.

Those who received appointment letters are Ayan Bhattacharya for Sanskrit College and University; Sanchari Roy Mukherjee for Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University; Nimai Chandra Saha for Harichand Guruchand University; Arnab Sen for Raiganj University; Mita Banerjee for Diamond Harbour Women’s University; Arunasish Goswami for Baba Saheb Ambedkar Education University; Debabrata Basu for Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya; and Debabrata Mitra for West Bengal State University.

With these appointments, the impasse has been resolved in eight of the 11 universities that were functioning without permanent vice-chancellors.

Three institutions — University of North Bengal, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology and Netaji Subhas Open University — remain without permanent heads. In its January 16 order, the court referred the names proposed for these three universities back to the committee headed by Justice Lalit for fresh consideration.

The panel has been asked to examine the materials placed before it and decide whether to recommend a fresh panel from among the existing candidates or initiate a new selection process within

four weeks.