Guv-recommended names for search panel formation triggers controversy

Kolkata: The names recommended by Governor C V Ananda Bose to the Supreme Court for formation of a search committee has triggered a controversy.

Two of the names have been particularly pointed out. One of them is IIT Kharagpur director V K Tewari. According to news reports, during the hearing of the Faizan Ahmed case, Calcutta High Court observed that the report of the director was “thoroughly misleading, if not an attempt to cover up.” It has been also alleged that Tewari had delivered an address on the Facebook page of ABVP, the student’s wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, on coronavirus outbreak.

The other name was of vice -chancellor of a university in Rajasthan who was reportedly accused of sexual harassment in 2018 when he was teaching in Delhi University.

A section of educationists in the state have criticised the recommendation of such names. “The academic community in Bengal is shocked and surprised to see the names of academicians nominated by the Hon’ble Chancellor. All those nominated by His Excellency are interestingly either from outside the state or from outside the ambit of the Higher Education department of Bengal. Moreover, recent reports published in the media about the professional track record of some of those academicians thus nominated by the chancellor have cast serious doubts and confusion in the public domain regarding the integrity of their character and impeccable image. Such nominations also appear to be a direct insult to the Bengal academia and the high profile internationally acclaimed intellectual tradition of Bengal,” Professor Om Prakash Mishra, who is part of the state Educationists’ Forum, said. The state Education minister Bratya Basu had earlier alleged that Governor C V Ananda Bose has not found a single academic from the state to be part of his proposed search committee for shortlisting candidates for vice-chancellor’s post.

Meanwhile, it has been reported that the state’s list contains names like former Rabindra Bharati University V-C Sabyasachi Basu Roy Choudhury, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics retired professor Abhijit Chakraborty and ISI professor Abhirup Sarkar.