West Bengal shows how VCs become victims of faulty application of the law

KOLKATA: The iconic University of Calcutta recently turned out to be a perfect example of how the Vice Chancellor of a state-run university can become a victim of an ego tussle between a state government and the governor, resulting in faulty application of an emergency clause regarding the appointment or reappointment of a Vice-Chancellor.

Legal experts have sounded a note of caution that the West Bengal government had made a similar faulty application of the related clause in the case of 24 other state universities and unless the state government immediately rectifies that application error, there are chances that the Vice Chancellors there will meet a similar fate like that of the erstwhile Vice Chancellor of the University of Calcutta, Sonali Chakraborti Banerjee, who faced the unceremonious cancellation of her reappointment.

Both the state government and Banerjee took legal steps to ensure that the reappointment decision stays. But first, the division bench of the Calcutta High Court and then the Supreme Court quashed her reappointment.

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