Visva-Bharati teachers’ body writes letter to President Murmu on VC's 'caste abuse'
Telegraph | 12 July 2023
The Visva-Bharati teachers’ association on Monday wrote to President Droupadi Murmu requesting her to reconsider the participation of vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty at a two-day conference at Rashtrapati Bhavan that started on Monday.
The association urged her to take appropriate action against him as a criminal case has been lodged against him for allegedly harassing and abusing an official belonging to the Scheduled Caste community.
The two-day-long Visitors’ Conference 2023 at Rashtrapati Bhavan was inaugurated on Monday with an inaugural address by President Murmu, who is the Visitor of 162 central institutions of higher education.
A source in Visva-Bharati said Chakrabarty is at the conference that will end on Tuesday.
“It is unfortunate that the prestigious conference was attended by our VC Bidyut Chakrabarty, who himself is accused in a case of harassing a senior official as he belongs to the Scheduled Caste category. We wrote the letter seeking justice from our President who hails from a tribal community. We demanded reconsideration of his presence at the conference and urged to send the VC on leave till the completion of the investigation of the criminal case,” said Sudipta Bhattacharyya the President of the Visva-Bharati University Faculty Association (VBUFA).
Apart from the President, the letter was emailed to many top officials in Delhi, including Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Prashant Meshram, a senior varsity official who served Visva-Bharati for the past 18 years, lodged a criminal case at Santiniketan police station on July 5 against the VC and three more varsity officials for abusing him as he was an SC employee.
Meshram wrote that since he reported his harassment by varsity authorities to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) seeking justice, Chakrabarty abused him on June 26 in the presence of other officials.
“Prof. Bidyut Chakrabarty first abused me for filing a complaint to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and uttered abusive remarks...,” he said.
Meshram alleged that Chakrabarty asked his secretary not to allow SC, ST and OBC officials in his office and asked officials of reserved categories not to call him over the phone.