New Delhi:The Supreme Court on Monday said the rift between the West Bengal government and the state’s Governor CV Ananda Bose, who happens to be the chancellor of universities, is the root cause of stalemate in the appointment of regular vice-chancellors, and the chaos has further deepened as neither there are regular VCs nor interim or ad hoc VCs are permitted to be appointed.
The apex court made these observations while appointing former Chief Justice of India U U Lalit as chairman of the search-cum-selection committees for appointment of VCs in all state universities.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and K V Vishwanathan said: "The rift between the State Government, on the one hand, and the Governor of West Bengal, who happens to be the Chancellor of subject universities, on the other, is the root cause of stalemate in the appointment of regular VCs". The bench said there is no consensus between the two sets of authorities in the matter of constitution and composition of search committees for shortlisting the candidates for appointment as VCs.
The bench said it had disapproved of the Chancellor's action of appointing interim VCs without consulting the state government, all such further appointments were stayed through an order passed on October 6, 2023.
The bench said the chaos has further deepened as neither there are regular VCs nor interim or adhoc VCs are permitted to be appointed. "Regardless thereto, the Chancellor has assigned the powers of Vice Chancellors to various persons — not necessarily all of them are academicians. The State of West Bengal has strongly protested against such a recourse…..", said the bench.
The controversy before the court related to the appointment of VCs in 35 state universities. The apex court, by invoking its power under Article 142 of the Constitution, nominated eminent educationists, scientists, jurists, subject experts and administrators etc for the purpose of empanelment on the committee.
"We resolve to constitute Search-cum-Selection Committee(s) of the same composition so as to avoid any confusion, irrespective of the fact that the relevant provision of the Statute of the concerned University may contain slight variations," the bench added.
The bench said its endeavour is to infuse transparency, independence, fairness, and impartiality so as to ensure that the persons possessing the highest level of competence and integrity are capable of leading the university by example are shortlisted. The top court directed the search committee to complete their task within three months.
The bench said recommendations made by the search-cum-selection committee, duly endorsed by the chairperson, shall be put up before the Chief Minister (and not the Minister-in-charge of a Department) for necessary consideration.
"In case the Chief Minister, has reasons to believe that any shortlisted person is unsuitable for appointment as Vice Chancellor, the remarks to this effect along with supporting material and the original record of the recommendation made by the Search-cum-Selection Committee, shall be put up before the learned Chancellor within two weeks," observed the bench.
The bench said the Chief Minister would be entitled to recommend the shortlisted names in order of preference for appointment as VCs.
"In the case(s) where the Chief Minister of the State has objected to the inclusion of any name in the panel and such objection is not acceptable to the Chancellor or where the Chancellor has an objection against empanelment of any particular name for which he has assigned his own reasons, all such files shall be put up before this Court. We make it clear that a final decision in this regard shall be taken by this Court after giving reasonable opportunity of being heard to the objectors”, said the bench.
The top court asked the West Bengal government to file the status report in respect to compliance of the directions issued before the next date of hearing.
