West Bengal academicians seek ₹50 lakhs in damages from Chancellor

Academicians send legal notice to Chancellor for defamation; seek damages of Rs 50 lakh & apology. Allegations made by Governor C. V. Ananda Bose against former Vice Chancellors of 31 state run universities in Kolkata led to 24 of them sending legal notices for civil & criminal defamation. Notice seeks damages & apology.

Anguished over allegations made by Governor C. V. Ananda Bose, a group of academicians have sent a legal notice to the Chancellor for civil and criminal defamation.

The Governor who is also the Chancellor of all State universities in a video message at Raj Bhawan earlier this month had said, “You know why I could not appoint those nominated by the state government as interim vice-chancellors. The truth is, some were corrupt; some stand accused of harassing a female student, some were playing politics”. 

The remarks by the Chancellor infuriated the 24 former Vice Chancellors who were unceremoniously removed in May 2023, after the Governor did not accept the State’s government request to extend the tenure of these academicians as Vice Chancellors.

On Thursday, more than half a dozen academicians held a press conference announcing that they have individually sent legal notices to the Chancellor. “The Governor enjoys immunity by law, but the Chancellor does not. We have sent these notices to the Chancellor and we are determined to pursue it,” Professor Omprakash Mishra, former Vice Chancellor of North Bengal University said. Prof Mishra, who teaches International Relations at Jadavpur University, said that there may be differences between Raj Bhawan and the State government over the appointment of interim Vice Chancellors but the Governor should not be dragging academicians into the discourse. 

The former Vice Chancellors said they were under the impression that since they did not send weekly reports to Raj Bhawan because existing laws forbade them from doing so, they were not given extensions.

Professor Ashutosh Ghosh, former Vice Chancellor of University of Calcutta and Professor Dipak Kumar Kar, former Vice Chancellor Sidho Kanho Birsa University said that they were “devastated and shattered’ by the allegations made by the Chancellor and added that if they did not protest then many would believe that there was some basis to these allegations.”