Eight members submit dissent note over AMU acting VC chairing meet

ALIGARH: Eight members of the AMU governing body, who attended a meeting to shortlist names for the post of the Aligarh Muslim University vice-chancellor, have submitted a strong dissent note questioning the legality and morality of the acting VC chairing the meet in which the name of his wife was shortlisted.

At the meeting held on Monday, acting VC Mohammad Gulrez's wife Naima Khatoon, who is the principal of the AMU's Women's College, got 50 votes of the members of the AMU Court or governing body. The other two shortlisted candidates -- M Uruj Rabbani (former dean of Faculty of Medicine, AMU) and Faizan Mustafa (noted jurist and former VC of National Law University, Nalsar) -- got 61 and 53 votes, respectively.

Shortly after the special meeting of the AMU Court, eight of the 84 members who attended it, submitted the note of dissent. Two of those who signed the dissent note are senior faculty members, Professor Aftab Alam, Chairman Department of Strategic Studies, and Professor Sufyan Beg, Principal of the Zakir Hussain College of Engineering and Technology, AMU.

Six other members of the Court who had signed the note of dissent are Professor Hafiz Ilyas Khan and elected members Khurshid Khan, Syed Nadeem Ahmad, Syed Mohammad Ahmad Ali, Suhail Ahmad Niyazi and M Suhaib. Professor Aftab Alam told PTI, “The act of the officiating Vice Chancellor to preside and vote at a meeting in which his wife is one of the candidates violates the basic principle of 'Nemo judex in causa sua' (no one is a judge in his own cause). The conflict of interest, and the Central Civil Services (conduct) Rules, 1964."

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"Surprisingly the objections by two members in the Executive Council (in its meeting on November 30) were not only ignored by the Chair but he (the acting VC) himself gave the ruling in his own favour in gross violation of the principle of natural justice,” he said.