Appoint VCs to 17 Bengal varsities in two weeks, else we’ll do it: SC to guv
Times of India | 3 April 2025
Kolkata: Supreme Court on Wednesday gave Bengal governor C V Ananda Bose two weeks to appoint full-time vice-chancellors in 17 state-run universities, saying it would do the job if he did not.
Bose — the chancellor of all 36 state-run universities — has appointed 19 full-time VCs, based on recommendations made by chief minister Mamata Banerjee from a shortlist prepared by the apex court-appointed Justice U U Lalit committee. The post of a permanent VC in the other 17 universities, including Calcutta University (CU) and Jadavpur University (JU), has been lying vacant.
"The apex court has, in effect, given a two-week ultimatum to the chancellor to make the remaining appointments," said a govt official with knowledge of the court proceedings. "This is a substantial breakthrough in the ongoing deadlock over full-time VC appointments."
Neither Raj Bhavan nor Bengal govt issued any statement in this regard.
After being set up by the top court in July 2024, the committee, led by former CJI U U Lalit, conducted interviews for the post of VCs to all 36 universities.
Since being set up in July 2024, the Supreme Court-appointed Justice U U Lalit committee found no suitable candidates for West Bengal University of Health Sciences and Rabindra Bharati University, for which fresh advertisements were issued.
The chief minister's office has, in the meantime, forwarded its recommendations for the remaining 34 universities to Raj Bhavan, from which the governor has chosen 19 VCs.
While forming the committee, the court had made it clear the CM will recommend the shortlisted VC names "in order of preference", and that the governor "shall appoint the vice-chancellors out of the empanelled names, in the same order of preference" as that of the recommendation. Disputes and objections raised by either side could be argued in Supreme Court, it said.