Two officiating vice-chancellors, who governor C.V. Ananda Bose alleged had resigned following threats from the state administration, have informed the higher education department in writing that they quit so they could concentrate on teaching-learning and research, said an official of the department.
Three others are yet to respond to queries sent by the state government
following the governor’s allegations.
Bose, the ex-officio chancellor of state-aided universities, said in a video message on September 7 that the five were threatened by the department and that they resigned “out of fear”.
Hours after the governor made the allegations, the department wrote to the five asking them “to provide necessary details of any such alleged threats/intimidation faced” by them through email by September 11.
Separate letters with the same text were sent to Indranil Mukherjee and Gautam Majumder, who resigned from Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology in quick succession; Chandan Basu, who resigned from Netaji Subhas Open University; Sanchari Mukherjee who resigned from North Bengal University; and Amitava Datta, who resigned from Jadavpur University.
An education department official said one of the two VCs had said he informed the chancellor on July 18 that he wanted to leave the post because he “would like to concentrate on the teaching-learning and research” which is his “principal interest”.
Metro has seen copies of the letter the former VC has sent to the department.
Calls and a text message from this newspaper to the VC failed to elicit any response. Calls, an email and a text message to chancellor Bose had no response either.
“Whatever the chancellor has said is not backed by the two former vice-chancellors,” said an official of the education department.
“Had they substantiated with proof that they faced threat, we would go to any extent to punish those who threatened them,” he added.
On Tuesday evening, a separate communication with the same text was sent to the three VCs who did not respond within the deadline.
Bose had said in his video statement: “It is regrettable that the five VCs had to resign. Why? Why? Why? They have told me goons were threatening them. The education ministry was intimidating them....”