Kolkata: The administrative tussle between the Raj Bhavan and the Secretariat in West Bengal over the appointment of interim vice- chancellors for state-run universities has now turned into severe verbal brick-batting between Governor C.V. Ananda Bose and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
First, the Chief Minister threatened to create economic blockades by stopping funds supply from the state exchequer to those state universities which will operate as per the directives of the Governor.
Banerjee, at the same time, threatened to stage a protest in front of the Governor’s House against the alleged attempts by Bose to run a parallel administration in the state, especially in the education sector.
The Governor, who by virtue of his chair is also the Chancellor of all the state universities, reacted strongly within 48 hours by welcoming the Chief Minister to stage her protest within the Raj Bhavan premises.
Bose claimed that he had to appoint interim vice-chancellors since many state universities were running headless after the previous VCs had to resign following an order of the Supreme Court because their appointments were not made as per the norms.
The Governor also justified his stand of not appointing VCs from the state government-nominated candidates, as those nominations were of individuals with ‘tainted’ records.
Throwing a virtual challenge to the Chief Minister, Bose even said that he will go to any extent to protect the autonomous nature of the state universities.
In the midst of this war of words between Banerjee and Bose, how far is the Chief Minister’s threat to create economic blockade against universities following the directives of the Governor legally tenable?
Political observers and legal experts are of the opinion that any move to create economic blockade against any state university might attract legal repercussions, considering that there was a recent legal precedent this year with the Calcutta High Court upholding the decision of the Governor appointing interim VCs by virtue of his position as the Chancellor.
Calcutta High Court counsel Kaushik Gupta pointed out that on June 28, a division bench led by Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam had dismissed a PIL challenging the decision of Bose to appoint interim VCs to 11 state universities without the concurrence of the state Education Department.
“In the verdict, the bench clearly ruled that since the appointment of these 11 interim VCs was totally valid, it comes under the duty and responsibility of the state government to pay the salaries, allowances and other financial entitlements to these interim VCs. This part of the order was extremely crucial, since the Education Department had then ordered stop-payment of salaries, allowances and other financial entitlements to these interim VCs,” Gupta said.
In view of such a precedent and that too of the recent past, he added, any government decision to create economic blockade against a single state university is bound to face severe legal repercussions.
“If there is any economic blockade against any university and if anyone challenges that order in the court, the counsel of the petitioner will surely raise the order of Calcutta High Court dated June 28 as a precedent,” Gupta said.
Acclaimed political scientist and former principal of Presidency College, Amal Kumar Mukhopadhyay, said that the Governor by virtue of being the Chancellor of all state universities, is well within his rights to appoint interim VCs to any state university where the post is lying vacant.
“Precisely that is why the Calcutta High Court had upheld his earlier appointments. Creating economic blockade for any university or rather any educational institution on such grounds is something really unthinkable and unheard of,” he said.
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