Governor C.V. Ananda Bose has entrusted a former Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court, Subhro Kamal Mukherjee, with performing the duties of vice-chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University (RBU), allegedly bypassing the state government and drawing protests from academics.
The academics questioned why a person accused of expressing “bigoted views” in the past has been asked to helm a university named after Rabindranath Tagore.
The governor, who is ex-officio chancellor of all state universities, issued a notice on Thursday that said: “Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee (Retired) is authorized to exercise the power and perform the duties of the vice-chancellor for Rabindra Bharati University, under the ….. till further order.”
RBU registrar Subir Maitra said the retired judge would assume charge on Friday.
RBU has been without a VC since the three-month tenure of Nirmalya Narayan Chakrabarti, a professor of philosophy at the university, ended on June 8.
Chancellor Bose asked the retired judge to perform the duties of VC a week after Calcutta High Court declined to stay a similar arrangement that the chancellor had introduced in 13 other state-aided universities.
An official in the education department said the chancellor had in the previous 13 instances chosen the officiating VCs from among teachers of the respective universities.
“This is the first time a retired judge with no experience of serving in an academic institute has been asked to perform the duties of a VC. His role as Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court was contentious,” said the official who requested anonymity.
Sugata Bose, who teaches oceanic history at Harvard University, said the appointment was “most unfortunate”.
Bose, a great-nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, said: “The appointment is most unfortunate because this (Mukherjee) is a person who has expressed bigoted views as a judge. He is unfit to be vice-chancellor of a university named after Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore’s vision of India was that it was hometo people of all backgrounds, religious, linguistic and racial.”
He added: “I also find it procedurally incorrect that someone who has been a judge has been considered for performing the duties of a VC.”
Justice Mukherjee told The Telegraph: “Those who have appointed (me) can explain why they considered me for Rabindra Bharati University. I am not a political person. People may have likes or dislikes towards me. But I don’t have anything to say on this.”
Senior advocate of Calcutta High Court and CPM leader Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya said: “A university should only be helmed by someone who has some idea about the university system.”
Justice Mukherjee served as Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court from February 23, 2016 to October 9, 2017.
He had in 2016 questioned the logic behind the decision of then Congress-led government in Karnataka to celebrate the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan.
Trinamul Rajya Sabha MP Jawhar Sircar accused the Bengal governor of “doing politics”.
Sircar tweeted in the morning: “CM n elected Govt come through political route but Governor cannot do tit-for-tat politics — as he did not come up through politics and elections. This new ‘VC’ was the most controversial judge of Bangalore High Court….”
In another tweet, Sircar said that by appointing Justice Mukherjee as VC, “Governor WB is openly doing politics!”
This newspaper tried to get in touch with the governor, but he was unreachable on his mobile phone.
A WhatsApp message and an email sent to him by this newspaper failed to elicit any response.
State education minister Bratya Basu declined comment on the issue.