West Bengal: SC clears VC appointments for eight universities after state, governor reach consensus

The Supreme Court on Mondaycleared the appointments of vice-chancellors for eight state-run universities in West Bengal after it was informed that the state government and Governor CV Ananda Bose had no objections to the names, Live Law reported.

The institutions for which the appointments were cleared were Calcutta University, Biswa Bangla Biswabidyalaya, Sadhu Ram Chand Murmu University of Jhargram, Gour Banga University, Kazi Nazrul University, Jadavpur University, Raiganj University and North Bengal University.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi was hearing a petition filed by the Trinamool Congress-led West Bengal government challenging Bose’s delay in approving appointments to 36 state universities, The Hindu reported.

The appointments will be made soon, though the identities of the appointees have not been publicly disclosed, The Telegraph reported.

The bench said it will examine in-chamber the appointments for five other universities where the state and the governor are not in consensus.

Following the intervention of a committee headed by former Chief Justice of India UU Lalit last year, 19 appointments were cleared, while a deadlock persisted over 17 others where Bose had refused to appoint the first-preference candidates recommended by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

The governor is the chancellor of all state universities. The vice-chancellor of a university is appointed by the chancellor from a panel of three names recommended by the state government.

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