VC to return to campus on Monday; To seek legal view for JU response to the police
Telegraph | 15 March 2025
The Jadavpur University vice-chancellor will go to the campus on Monday to decide JU’s response to the Kolkata Police proposal seeking space on the campus to set up an outpost and barracks to “maintain a safe and secure environment”.
The VC, away from the campus over the past two weeks for health reasons, will meet JU officials and seek legal opinion to decide on the response.
Cops on Tuesday sought a “prompt” response from the university, saying that the police bandobast was essential given the prevailing students’ unrest on the campus.
JU is also going through the court order that the police cited in its communication to the registrar on Monday.
“The state government has to be informed about the developments as JU is state-aided. A response can only be finalised in a meeting of the university’s executive council, our highest decision-making body. We are looking forward to the VC’s presence on the campus,” said a JU official.
That suggests a “prompt” response is unlikely.
JU’s acting registrar, Indrajit Banerjee, went to the VC’s residence on Thursday evening to brief him about the situation on the campus.
Gupta told Metro on Friday: “I am hopeful of going to JU on Monday. The doctors will examine me before letting me go to the campus. Once I reach, I have to speak to senior officials and seek legal opinion to decide what is going to be the university’s response. Since the executive council is empowered to take decisions on such critical issues, we might have to convene a council meeting.”
The VC had to be admitted to hospital following a spike in his blood pressure days after Left and ultra-Left students allegedly heckled education minister Bratya Basu on March 1 and violence followed.
The students wanted Basu to immediately discuss the resumption of campus polls.
On Thursday, a JU official said if a council meeting had to be convened, permission had to be sought from Basu’s department because Gupta is an “authorised” VC, not a full-term VC.
The state government has made it clear that state-aided universities like JU that are headed by authorised VCs have to get permission from the education department to hold meetings of their top decision-making bodies.
A day before the cops wrote to JU seeking 2,000sqft for the police outpost and another 2,000sqft for the barracks, the varsity’s administrative committee meeting attended by officials and student representatives resolved to stick to its “tradition” of not calling the police to campus.
“Now, the university has to finalise its stand factoring in what was resolved at Monday’s meeting and what the police have said referring to a 2014 Calcutta High Court order,” a JU official said.
Some teachers said JU’s recent habit of viewing the campus as the sole preserve of the Left of all hues and not letting any other organisation have a toehold has handed the police an opportunity to intervene.
Two pro-Trinamool teachers — Om Prakash Mishra and Manojit Mandal — are not being allowed to take classes following a “boycott” call by the Left-supporter students.
When Mishra came to the campus on March 9, he was barracked by the students.
“That day, the police personnel cited the Calcutta High Court order of September 24, 2014, saved on their mobile phones, to the protesting students to justify their intervention. Two days later, a formal letter referring to the court order was sent to the registrar. So, the students ignited an order that was dormant for long,” said a JU professor.