Jadavpur University teachers' body calls protest rally to demand appointment of permanent VC

KOLKATA: The Jadavpur University Teachers Association (JUTA) on Thursday called a protest rally on the campus on June 21 to press for the demand for appointing a permanent Vice-Chancellor of the varsity as soon as possible. JUTA general secretary Partha Pratim Roy said in a statement the rally by teachers of the higher educational institution will converge before the administrative building to demand appointment of a permanent vice chancellor. The term of the Jadavpur university VC Suranjan Das ended on May 31.

JUTA is the largest representative body of teachers in JU. Governor C V Ananda Bose, who is also the Chancellor of state universities, had on June 1 appointed interim VCs in 14 state universities where the terms of previous ones had expired in May, but West Bengal Education minister Bratya Basu described these appointments by Raj Bhavan as "legally not valid" and called upon the VCs not to take over charges.

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In a related development, the state government on June 12 declared all 14 vice-chancellors of state universities, appointed by the Governor in early June, will continue to draw the salaries that they were getting as professors, and not as per their new assignment by the governor as interim VC as it did not have the sanction of the higher education department.

Senior professor Amitabha Datta had been appointed interim VC of JU by the governor after the term of Suranjan Das, who had helmed the varsity since 2015, expired.

Since Datta had been the pro-VC of the same university earlier, the tussle between the higher education department and governor apparently did not affect his functioning and he has been discharging his responsibility, a university source said.

"Our protest is against such unhealthy tussle between government and chancellor which is humiliating for teachers and in the June 21 rally at campus we will demand the restoration of respect and honour for the teaching community," Roy said. JUTA said the rally has also been called for appointing a permanent nominee of the chancellor in JU for better coordination between the varsity on issues pertaining to recruitment and promotion and induction of elected university representative in the Search Committee for VC.