Supreme Court Mandates Regular Vice-Chancellors for 36 West Bengal Universities

Amid an ongoing dispute between Governor C V Ananda Bose and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the Supreme Court has mandated that only regular vice-chancellors (VCs) shall be appointed to head all 36 state-aided universities in West Bengal.

To resolve the conflict between the state’s top constitutional functionaries over the appointment of VCs, the apex court constituted a search-cum-selection committee on July 8, headed by former Chief Justice of India U U Lalit, to oversee the appointments.

In an order passed on July 29, the Supreme Court clarified that there should not be any interim arrangements regarding the appointment of VCs.

“To be more specific, it is clarified that there shall be the appointment of regular vice-chancellors in all the 36 state-aided universities,” stated a bench of Justices Surya Kant and K V Viswanathan.

The bench endorsed the suggestion that the retirement age of VCs of three universities-Aliah University, West Bengal University of Health Sciences, and West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences-should be 65 years.

“For the remaining universities, the age of retirement of the vice-chancellor shall be 70 years,” it added.

The court granted wide-ranging powers to the Justice Lalit-led panel to shortlist eligible candidates for appointment as VCs.

“In addition, the chairperson will be free to co-opt any expert even from outside these lists at his discretion,” the bench said.

Previously, the top court had authorized the chairperson of the panel to constitute separate or joint search-cum-selection committees for one or more universities, considering the nature of subjects/disciplines in which education is being imparted in such universities.

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