'Govt has no right': Calcutta HC dismisses 29 VC's appointments

In a major setback to the West Bengal government, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday ruled that the state has no right to appoint or reappoint Vice Chancellors (VC) in state-run universities. The division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Srivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj also ruled for the dismissal of 29 VCs already appointed or reappointed by the state government.

The entire debate concerned the formation of search committees for the appointment of VCs. As per UGC norms, the search committee has to be constituted with one UGC representative, one from the state university concerned, and one nominated by the Governor.

This practice of formation of the search committee was followed in West Bengal as well until 2014, when the then state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee amended the rules regarding the constitution of the search committee, replacing the UGC representative with a state-government representative. Partha Chatterjee is currently in judicial custody due to his alleged involvement in the multi-crore teachers' recruitment.

The VCs appointed by search committees without a UGC representative have been challenged in several courts. With education being in the concurrent list as per the Indian constitution, if any state action on this subject goes against any central act in the same matter, then the latter will prevail.

Expressing satisfaction with Tuesday's order, the petitioner's counsel Sushmita Saha Dutta said that it is clear that the state government illegally appointed VCs.