The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a Calcutta High Court judgment quashing the reappointment of Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee as vice-chancellor of Calcutta University and the top court said “allowing such actions would be antithetical to the rule of law”.
“The state government chose the incorrect path under Section 60 by misusing the ‘removal of difficulty clause’ to usurp the power of the chancellor to make the appointment. A government cannot misuse the ‘removal of difficulty clause’ to remove all obstacles in its path which arise due to statutory restrictions. Allowing such actions would be antithetical to the rule of law. Misusing the limited power granted to make minor adaptations and peripheral adjustments in a statute for making its implementation effective, to side-step the provisions of the statute altogether would defeat the purpose of the legislation.
“Accordingly, the high court in our view was justified in coming to the conclusion that ‘in the guise of removing the difficulties, the state cannot change the scheme and essential provisions of the Act,” the apex court said.
A bench of Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli passed the judgement while dismissing the appeal filed by the Bengal government and Chakravarti Banerjee challenging the high court’s September 13 verdict quashing her reappointment.
Writing the judgment, Justice Chandrachud said: “There is neither an express provision nor a necessary intendment by which it could be inferred that the power which is entrusted to the chancellor to appoint a VC is taken away in the case of a reappointment. There is no intrinsic reason or rationale to accept the interpretation, which has been urged on behalf of the state of West Bengal.
“A reappointment is the appointment of an existing incumbent who fulfils the conditions of eligibility. The fulfilment of the conditions makes a person eligible for reappointment. The power of appointment including of reappointment is entrusted to the chancellor and not to the State government. The amended provisions of Section 8(2)(a) cannot, therefore, be construed to mean that the power of reappointment has been taken away from the chancellor and entrusted to the state government.”
The then governor and ex-officio chancellor of state universities had objected to Chakravarti Banerjee’s reappointment. The state government still went ahead and reappointed her VC in August 2021 after invoking Section 60 of the Calcutta University Act, which empowers the state government to pass necessary orders for “removal of difficulty”.
The high court had passed the impugned verdict on a PIL filed by an alumnus, Anindya Sundar Das, and others challenging her reappointment.
The high court had held that the state government had no authority to appoint or reappoint the VC under Section 8 of the Calcutta University Act or by taking recourse to the residuary provisions of Section 60 of the Act. As a consequence, the reappointment order was set aside.
The high court held that the VC had no authority to hold that office on the basis of the order of appointment.