The teachers’ association of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has demanded the immediate appointment of a regular vice-chancellor since the tenure of M Jagadesh Kumar had ended.
JNU is among a dozen central educational institutions that are functioning without a regular vice-chancellor or director. These institutions include the IITs at Indore, Mandi, Patna and Bhubaneswar.
“Today marks a month of Prof. Jagadesh Kumar’s extension as caretaker vice-chancellor. While the process of finding a replacement started in October 2020, it is unfortunate that the search committee constituted for the purpose has not been able to substantially advance its work,” said a statement issued by the Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) on Friday.
The association alleged impropriety in the nomination of members for JNU’s search panels. One of the applicants for the post was present at the meeting of JNU’s Executive Council that nominated the search panel members, the JNUTA alleged.
A JNU teacher said the university administration under the leadership of Kumar took decisions and actions to appease certain faculty members while victimising others who opposed his way of functioning.
The JNU vice-chancellor had issued showcause notices against 48 faculty members in 2018 for taking part in a protest on the campus.
Currently, Delhi University does not have a regularvice-chancellor after the suspension of Yogesh Tyagi.
The wait also continues for regular vice-chancellors at Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri National Sanskrit University and Central Sanskrit University. Expert committees had conducted interviews to fill up the posts in August last year.
The tenure of the incumbent vice-chancellors has been extended.
Six months after the education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal-led panel conducted interviews, IIT Ropar got its new director last month while the fate of the selection of directors at IIT Patna and IIT Bhubaneswar is unclear.
On July 14, 2020, the Pokhriyal panel had held online interviews of shortlisted candidates for the three IIT heads. After the posts were advertised by the education ministry on November 26, 2019, the process of selection of the heads of all the three IITs was carried out simultaneously. Last month Rajeev Ahuja was appointed IIT Ropar director.
The IIT faculty members were expecting that the directors would be appointed in July itself as the issuance of appointment letters usually does not take more than two weeks after the conduct of interviews. After the interviews, the education ministry sends the names to the President, who is the Visitor of the central universities and IITs. The Visitor clears the names expeditiously.
“The absence of a regular director is affecting recruitment of faculty and the planning of academic activities amid the pandemic. Development activities too have been held up. The order last month appointing the IIT Ropar director has created more question about transparency,” said an IIT Bhubaneswar faculty member.
The Telegraph sent an email to the education ministry to understand its perspective on the delay in recruitments after interviews, but received no reply.
