W.B. government, governor at loggerheads over academic appointments

West Bengal Governor C. V. Ananda Bose and the State government are at loggerheads over the appointment of interim Vice Chancellors at ten universities in the State. 

West Bengal Governor C. V. Ananda Bose and the State government are at loggerheads over the appointment of interim Vice Chancellors at ten universities in the State. 

State Education Minister Bratya Basu on Thursday took to social media to say that his department was considering seeking a legal opinion in connection with these appointments, adding that the department had not been consulted while making these appointments. The Minister urged the newly-appointed Vice Chancellors not to accept these “illegal appointments”. 

After a meeting with the State Education Minister in February, the Governor had accepted the resignation of several Vice Chancellors and extended their tenure for a period of three months. However, over the past few days, the Raj Bhavan appointed new interim Vice Chancellors without giving any extension to the Vice Chancellors whose terms had been extended in February.  

Sources in the State Education Department said that the Governor has only retained the few Vice Chancellors who had accepted Raj Bhavan’s directive to send weekly reports. Last week, the Governor had issued a show cause notice to about half a dozen Vice Chancellors who were not sending weekly reports to him in compliance with an April circular that the State Education Department had objected to.

The new development is reminiscent of the conflict between the earlier Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and Trinamool Congress government. The State government had gone ahead with appointing Vice Chancellors without the approval of the then-Governor, but those appointments were then set aside by the courts.

Governor Ananda Bose, who assumed charge in November 2022, had extended cooperation to the State government for his first few months in office. In February 2023, while extending the tenure of Vice Chancellors by three months, the Governor had said that education should be kept above the ambit of politics. However, relations between Raj Bhavan and the State Secretariat have soured over the past few months. The Governor has also said that he would not remain a mute witness when there was a deterioration of the law-and-order situation in the State

The developments regarding the appointment of interim Vice Chancellors has raised questions on the functioning of these ten universities, particularly in admission season.