Jadavpur University council to meet today to discuss student-centric issues
Telegraph | 5 February 2025
The state government has allowed Jadavpur University to hold a meeting of its executive council on Tuesday because the topics for discussion are related to students' interests.
JU had sought permission from the higher education department for the meeting and was given the nod last week.
An official of the department said they go through the details of the proposed agenda before deciding whether to allow state-aided universities headed by stop-gap vice-chancellors to hold meetings of their apex bodies.
"We allowed JU to hold the council meeting on December 20 because they wanted to discuss their convocation. The February 4 council meeting will discuss issues like approving courses. So the permission was granted," the official said.
JU was granted permission days after the department disallowed Rabindra Bharati University to conduct its executive council meeting.
An official of the department said they disallowed permission to RBU because some of the items listed in the January 22 meeting appeared objectionable to the department.
An authorized VC has helmed RBU since July 2023. The governor had appointed him allegedly without consulting the state government. An authorized VC has been running JU since April 2024.
The items that will be discussed at Tuesday's meeting at JU include among other things ratifying the decision to allow some of the departments to conduct a new course on "Research & Publication Ethics", awarding scholarships to students for one year on merit-cum-means basis and deciding on a uniform procedure for the refund of fees to the students.
The department in an advisory to the state-aided universities in April 2024 last year said that Rule 3(5) of the West Bengal State Universities (Terms and Conditions of Service of Vice-Chancellors and Manner and Procedure of Official Communication) Rules, 2019, mandate that the universities have to take prior permission from the department to hold the meetings of the court/senate/governing board and syndicate/executive council and other bodies of the universities as well as convocations.
"We will hold our executive council meeting on Tuesday. The department has permitted us," said JU's acting registrar Indrajit Banerjee.
An official said they had asked RBU not to decide on the termination of its registrar as the subject was sub judice.
"Despite that RBU terminated the registrar during its executive council meeting in December," the official said.
RBU held a meeting again on January 22 defying a state government order.