New Delhi: In a major jolt the Supreme Court upheld the Calcutta High Court verdict setting aside the re-appointment of Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee as vice-chancellor of the Calcutta University. The division bench of the apex court on Tuesday observed that the State government has usurped the powers of the Chancellor (WB Governor) while re-appointing Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee as the Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli said the impugned high court order is correct in law and facts and does not require interference. It said the State cannot have done away with the clause requiring approval of the West Bengal governor, who is the chancellor of the university.
On September 13, Calcutta High Court had ordered the removal of Calcutta University Vice Chancellor Sonali Chakraborty Bandopadhyay on the ground that her reappointment as the VC of the university on August 27, 2021 didn’t have the approval of Jagdeep Dhankhar - the then governor and the automatic chancellor of the university. The state had moved the apex court challenging the High Court order.
Reacting on a PIL the division bench of Calcutta High Court comprising of Prakash Srivastava and Rajarshi Bharadwaj had said that the procedure followed during the reappointment of Chakraborty was wrong and so she had ceased to become the vice chancellor of the university from the time of the pronouncement of judgement. Interestingly enough Chakraborty is the wife of former chief secretary and presently the special advisor to the chief minister Alapan Bandopadhyay.
The incident dates back to 2011 when the tenure of Chakraborty was about to end, the state government had sent the proposal of her reappointment to the Dhankhar – the chancellor of the university but the governor kept the file on hold and sought for an explanation. On August 27, 2011- the last day of her tenure- the state government reappointed Chakraborty citing ‘Removal of Difficulty’ clause which was immediately chased by on Anindya Sundar Das.
The plaintiff had alleged that there is a procedural problem in the reappointment of Chakraborty and the state government cannot unilaterally take the decision of reappointing the vice chancellor of any state-run university unless that is being approved by the chancellor. In this case as the governor hasn’t signed her reappointment so she cannot enjoy a second term.
The case becomes even more interesting because Chakraborty’s husband Alapan Bandopadhyay- is known to be close to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. On several occasions, she came out in full support of the former bureaucrat. It may be recalled that Mamata said he is an "honest" and "competent" officer a year ago when the bureaucrat's legal tussle with the Centre resulted in Bandopadhyay's premature retirement.
