President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday suspended Delhi University’s absentee vice-chancellor, Yogesh K. Tyagi, on the charge of “misgovernance” but several teachers of the varsity alleged the government was equally to blame.
Tyagi — whose attempts last week to ambush the executive council’s decisions from outside had embarrassed the university — will face an inquiry over “dereliction of duties and lack of commitment and devotion to duty”, the education ministry’s suspension order said.
Pro-vice-chancellor P.C. Joshi will continue to discharge the vice-chancellor’s responsibilities for now. Tyagi, appointed in March 2016, was to end his tenure next March. The President is the Visitor, or head, of all central universities.
An apparently ailing Tyagi, absent from the campus for over two months without officially taking leave, had on October 21 foisted an acting registrar on the university just before the executive council was to appoint a regular registrar.
His appointee P.C. Jha hijacked the registrar’s office for a whole day and later issued orders negating earlier orders by Joshi, who had been filling in also as acting registrar. Tyagi had issued another order replacing Joshi with Geeta Bhatt.
Eventually, the education ministry intervened to clarify that Tyagi’s orders appointing Jha and Bhatt were invalid. Wednesday’s suspension order repeated the point.
The suspension order accused the VC of “not administering the university in accordance with the provision of the act, statutes and ordinances of DU, which has caused misgovernance and malfunctioning of DU”.
It cited a series of lapses, including inaction or very little action on the pending appointments of teachers, chairpersons of college governing bodies, and key university functionaries.
It cited how the post of pro-VC had been vacant from June 2016 to June 2020 till Joshi was appointed after great “pursuance by administrative ministry”.
The posts of registrar and finance officer had been vacant since March before the executive council filled them both last week. The university has lacked regular controllers of examinations for the past six years. Many colleges have lacked principals and chairpersons of their governing bodies.
Besides, several vigilance and sexual harassment complaints have been pending for more than two years without any action.
Delhi University has about 4,500 ad-hoc teachers, who make up half the teacher strength. The government has from time to time asked the university to fill the posts but only a few were filled during Tyagi’s tenure.
Earlier this year, the university had written to its affiliated colleges to hire guest teachers, threatening the jobs of the ad-hoc teachers. The ministry had to intervene and ask the university to continue with the ad-hoc teachers as a stop-gap arrangement.
The suspension order mentioned Tyagi’s long absence from office without formal leave from the executive council.
At least half-a-dozen teachers of the university, however, told The Telegraph that the education ministry and the University Grants Commission had allowed the mess to continue.
“DUTA (the university’s teacher association) submitted a white paper in June last year on the inactions and misgovernance. But the government and the UGC allowed the malfunctioning to continue. They share the responsibility for the present situation equally,” former executive council member Abha Dev Habib said.
The teachers feared that the inquiry was mainly the outcome of a power struggle within a BJP-backed teachers’ group and had little to do with correcting the university’s affairs.
WhatsApp messages and a phone call to Tyagi went unanswered. An email to the education ministry on the teachers’ allegation about the government ignoring the white paper evoked no response, either.
