Jadavpur University’s 67th Convocation held sans Governor’s presence

Kolkata: Jadavpur University (JU) successfully held its 67th annual convocation on Tuesday, despite objections from Governor CV Ananda Bose, who is also the Chancellor of the university.

While the event proceeded without the Chancellor’s presence, his nominees for the Court and Executive Council (EC) attended the ceremony.

Bose had raised objections to JU’s decision to hold its convocation on December 24, sending multiple letters to JU’s officiating vice-chancellor (V-C), Bhaskar Gupta. In one letter, sent the night before the convocation, Bose said that the university did not give sufficient time before convening the meeting of the Court, scheduled for 9:45 am on Tuesday. However, JU went ahead with both the Court meeting and the convocation ceremony. The V-C declared the event open, leaving a chair vacant in honour of the Chancellor. During the Court meeting, Jitendra Nath Roy, one of the Chancellor’s nominees, was present. Sources revealed that the V-C received several calls from the Chancellor’s office, urging him not to proceed with the meeting. Confirmation that the Chancellor would not attend also came on the morning of the event.

V-C Gupta remarked: “It would have been great if the Chancellor could have attended, but we were informed he couldn’t. We’ve always strived to conduct ourselves with integrity.” Amitava Dutta, Pro V-C of JU, stated: “The convocation was held in accordance with all legal procedures, with the Chancellor’s consent. After several discussions, we received permission from his office to proceed.”

The convocation saw 3,719 students awarded degrees, including 434 PhDs, 1,638 PG degrees, and 1,644 UG degrees. Former IIT Kharagpur director Amitabha Ghosh was the chief guest. Kaji Masum Akhtar, the Chancellor’s nominee for the EC, also attended, stating that he had received permission from Raj Bhavan to be present in the convocation. The convocation date was set following an EC meeting on December 17. However, the Governor objected to the hasty scheduling of the meeting and the university’s failure to seek his approval for the date. V-C Gupta had met the Governor on December 20 to clarify the situation, but the Governor deemed his explanation ‘unacceptable’ in a follow-up letter on December 21. In that letter, he had also dubbed the

convocation ‘illegal’.