HC orders Girish Park OC's help for VC and registrar to enter RBU campus freely
Telegraph | 27 March 2025
The high court issued an interim order on Tuesday asking the officer-in-charge of Girish Park police station to take steps so the authorised vice-chancellor and registrar of Rabindra Bharati University can enter the varsity campus without any resistance.
Justice Biswajit Basu asked the OC and the state administration to file a status report on the alleged unrest on the university campus following protests by a pro-Trinamool teachers’ association, which demanded the removal of the authorised VC and the acting registrar.
The teachers said they were seeking the removal of the two because according to the university’s statue, an authorised VC and an acting registrar cannot hold office beyond six months until given fresh extensions and the two were allegedly continuing in their positions without any extension orders.
“The persons may have a right of demonstration, but the same cannot be stretched to deny the entry of the vice-chancellor or the officials of the University to the campus; therefore, the Officer-in-Charge, Girish Park Police Station, is directed to render all sorts of police assistance to the vice-chancellor and the other officials of the University, ensuring their immediate hassle-free ingress and egress to the Jorasanko campus of the university,” the judge said in the written order.
Justice Basu ordered the compliance report to be filed by Wednesday before Justice Jay Sengupta, the judge who will be hearing the case on Wednesday.
The order followed a petition by the authorised VC, Suvro Kamal Mukherjee, who is also a retired judge of Calcutta High Court, alleging that agitators were not allowing him and the registrar to enter the university campus.
The case was first moved to Justice Tirthankar Ghosh’s court, but the judge said that he had no jurisdiction to hear the case.
Then, the petitioner tried to move the plea before Justice Jay Sengupta.
As Justice Sengupta was not available, Biswaroop Bhattacharya, the lawyer appearing for the VC and the registrar, moved the court of Justice Basu.
When Justice Basu heard that the agitation was still going on, he issued an interim order.
Authorised VC Mukherjee entered the university campus at 3.30pm on Tuesday, half an hour after Justice Basu gave the order.
Debolina Seth, a professor who leads the pro-Trinamool teachers’ chapter on the RBU campus, said: “It was not clear to us why the authorised VC alleged that he was prevented from entering the campus. On Monday, we staged peaceful protests outside the campus. The authorised VC did not come to the campus at all.”
Mukherjee was appointed authorised VC of RBU in July 2023 by Bengal governor C.V. Ananda Bose, the ex-officio chancellor of the state-aided universities.
A Supreme Court-appointed search committee has recommended a panel of three names for full-term VC for RBU. The names have been set in order of preference by chief minister Mamata Banerjee and have since been forwarded to the chancellor.
But the chancellor is yet to select a name from the panel.
“I had to approach the court following the obstruction that I encountered,” Mukherjee told reporters.