Visva-Bharati, the university founded by Rabindranath Tagore, has paid out Rs 2.17 crore as subsistence allowance to its faculty and administrative staff in the past two financial years, information accessed through the Right to Information law in May this year has revealed.

In 2019-20, the payout under this head at Visva-Bharati stood at zero.

The sum of Rs 2.17 crore is not evidence of any sudden eruption of benevolence but an upshot of an outbreak of suspensions in the central varsity.

Although suspended employees are not allowed to work, they have to be paid a part of their salary. This subsistence allowance works out to half the salary for the first three months of suspension and 75 per cent of the salary after that.

The figure of Rs 2.17 crore offers a measure of the sweep of the disciplinary proceedings initiated by the institution of national importance against its employees since the current vice-chancellor, Bidyut Chakrabarty, found his feet after taking over in November 2018.

Critics describe Chakrabarty as an ideal choice for the government headed by Narendra Modi, who is the chancellor of Visva-Bharati. One of the recent pursuits of the university speaks for itself: last week the institution held a review of a book on Modi. Sporting the evocative title, Modi@20: Dreams Meet Delivery, the book boasts chapters from writers such as Union home minister Amit Shah and national security adviser Ajit Doval.

Disciplinary proceedings, suspensions and removal of employees are regular affairs in the university — an “accomplishment” that befits a correctional centre more than the seat of learning envisioned by Tagore in the Abode of Peace.

• Eight faculty and staff members have been removed from the payroll while three others have been forced into compulsory retirement, according to data compiled by the Visva-Bharati University Faculty Association (VBUFA) on the basis of information collected from their members. These 11 are no longer employees of the university.
• Fourteen faculty and staff members have been removed from the official positions they held although they remain on the payroll of the institution.
• Twenty-one faculty and staff members have been suspended in the past three years. Thirteen of them resumed their work after the revocation of their suspensions along with the imposition of penalties such as increment cuts. The others remain suspended.
• As many as 160 faculty and staff members were issued with showcause notices between January 1, 2019, and April 20, 2022, on various charges. Of them, 76 faced the showcause for allegedly locking the office of the vice-chancellor, leading to the confinement of the VC, registrar and joint registrar inside the office. An inquiry committee headed by a former judge said the charge was not conclusively proved, university sources said.
• The figure of 160 accounts for more than 12 per cent of the 1,300 roster strength at Visva-Bharati. Showcause notices and suspensions are uncommon in most central universities.

Even in Jawaharlal Nehru University, where a section of the faculty was locked in a standoff with then vice-chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar, fewer showcause notices were issued in comparison with Visva-Bharati. Over a six-year period from January 2016 to February 2022, showcause notices were issued to 70 of the 630 faculty members (just over 11 per cent) at JNU. The teachers got relief from the courts in most of these cases.

Since Chakrabarty took over at Visva-Bharati, the university has landed itself in nearly 60 court cases, mainly as a result of aggrieved staff taking legal recourse. Visva-Bharati has spent nearly Rs 28 lakh in the past three years on legal affairs and inquiry proceedings.

Three members of Parliament have sought the intervention of the Union education ministry for the smooth functioning of the institution. Trinamul Congress Rajya Sabha MP Jawhar Sircar has written two letters in the past two months to Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, seeking his intervention.

In July, the VBUFA complained to the minister about the “wrongful” actions of vice-chancellor Chakrabarty.

The following are some of the cases involving Visva-Bharati, and offer an insight into what has been unfolding in the institution of national importance:

Rajesh Venugopal: The assistant professor of drama was showcaused in February 2021 by the in-charge registrar on the directive of the vice-chancellor for negligence of duty and misconduct. He had visited the department of academics and research, which was considered an act of negligence of duty.

Venugopal was issued a chargesheet and suspended in March, pending disposal of the disciplinary proceedings. He moved Calcutta High Court, contending that he had visited the administrative office for academic purposes after completing his duty.

On March 30 this year, a single-judge bench revoked the chargesheet and the suspension order. The university has challenged the order before a two-judge bench. The matter is pending.

Sruti Bandyopadhyay: Venugopal faced the wrath of the vice-chancellor allegedly because he had not supported the action taken against Bandyopadhyay, a professor whose salary was stopped in August 2020 by the university, citing unauthorised leave while the faculty member was working from home.

At a meeting at Sangeet Bhavana, the vice-chancellor had moved a resolution stating that Bandyopadhyay would not be allowed to enter the department until her leave had been regularised. All the faculty members signed it, except for Venugopal.

Bandyopadhyay moved Calcutta High Court against the action and was granted an order in her favour. The court has asked the university to pay the pending salary.

Sudipta Bhattacharya: Economics professor Bhattacharya’s ordeal started reportedly after he wrote a post on the WhatsApp group for faculty members on June 21, 2020. That day, the local police station had questioned purported associates of the vice-chancellor on a molestation complaint filed by a woman.

Bhattacharya wrote: “From a reliable source, came to know that Santiniketan P.S. called CAPTAIN and others in molestation case. CAPTAIN sent the lawyer while all others physically reported at P.S....”

The university showcaused Bhattacharya for the reference to “captain”. The university set up a two-member inquiry committee, which included a faculty member junior to Bhattacharya.

Bhattacharya was called by the panel. He appeared before the committee but told it that since a chargesheet had not been issued, he would not respond to most of the questions. Rather he would indulge in “khosh golpo (banter)”.

The authorities picked on the phrase “khosh golpo”, and a separate complaint of sexual harassment was filed against Bhattacharya with the Internal Complaint Committee (ICC).

Bhattacharya moved Calcutta High Court. A single-judge bench stayed the proceedings of the ICC. The university moved a two-judge bench seeking vacation of the stay but the case was sent back to the single-judge bench. Visva-Bharati failed to file an affidavit for two years, following which the single-judge bench imposed a cost of Rs 10,000 on the university. The case is pending.

In January 2021, Bhattacharya was suspended in a separate case. He had collected documents under the RTI Act about allegedly illegal appointments in the university. Based on the documents, he had filed a complaint to the vice-chancellor and forwarded it to the President of India, who is the Visitor of the university, and the Prime Minister, who is the chancellor.

Bhattacharya was suspended for making “false allegations” and for writing to the higher authorities. He has filed a separate case in Calcutta High Court.

Three students: The suspension of Bhattacharya triggered protests by some students on the campus in January 2021. In August 2021, the university rusticated for three years Falguni Pan and Somenath Sow, both MA economics students, and Rupa Chakrabortty, a master’s student of music.

After the matter went to Calcutta High Court, a single-judge bench held that rustication for three years was prima facie disproportionate to the charge against the students, and kept the order in abeyance. In a subsequent order, the court set aside the rustication orders.

Manas Maity: The physics professor has been serving the institution for 20 years and bringing laurels to it.

Visva-Bharati, along with 10 other Indian universities and research organisations, has been part of an international research project, the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, CERN, since 2005.

CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, is where the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012 through two experiments, CMS and ATLAS. The Union government’s department of science and technology (DST) has been providing funds to the Indian institutions for this research. Maity is principal investigator from Visva-Bharati for this project.

In February 2020, Maity was removed as head of the department of physics on the charge of dereliction of duty. He had been part of a protest against the vice-chancellor.

Maity challenged his removal in Calcutta High Court, which in July 2021 restrained the university from further action, pending an inquiry. But the university suspended Maity on the same charge of dereliction of duty in May this year.

The vice-chancellor wrote to the DST to stop funding Maity’s research because he had been suspended. The DST last month wrote to Maity that it was unable to consider sanctioning the project. Maity again approached the high court.

The high court last month made scathing observations against the vice-chancellor and restrained the DST from taking any prejudicial steps.

“The letter of the vice-chancellor discloses a biased mindset which is unbecoming of the head of the university. The letter reflects a small-minded approach since it relates to a prestigious international project. The letter has resulted in the unfortunate decision of the DST reviewing its earlier sanction to the petitioner for participating in the project,” the high court order said.

Chandranath Banerjee: The field officer’s service was abruptly discontinued by the university in March 2021, citing the Covid situation although classes were continuing online.

Banerjee petitioned Calcutta High Court and got a stay order from a single-judge bench. The university approached a two-judge bench, which upheld the order of the single-judge bench. But the university is yet to reinstate Banerjee. Visva-Bharati has the option of moving the Supreme Court.

Shrabanti Ganguly: She used to work as a documentation assistant in a library at Bhasa Bhavana (department of languages). Her service was terminated in July 2020 during the first wave of the pandemic on the charge of involvement in a case of alleged misappropriation of funds.

In a reply to the showcause, Ganguly, a casual staff member, informed the authorities that she was in no position to know about such anomalies as she was posted at the reading room of the library.

Ganguly moved Calcutta High Court and got a favourable order from a single-judge bench on July 8 this year. The court held that the charge against her was incorrect and the termination was illegal. The court asked the university to reinstate her with 50 per cent of her pending wages within two weeks. The court also directed the varsity to pay Rs 20,000 to Ganguly as litigation cost.

However, Ganguly is yet to be reinstated. Visva-Bharati has the option of moving a division bench against the order.

Separate emails have been sent to vice-chancellor Chakrabarty and the Union government’s higher education secretary, Sanjay Murthy, seeking their perspectives on the allegations. Their responses are awaited.

Additional reporting by Snehamoy Chakraborty