Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of Calcutta High Court on Tuesday said Visva-Bharati vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty "must be removed" from his post immediately, after directing varsity authorities to issue an order to reinstate within seven days physics professor Manas Maity to a prestigious international project from which he was removed last year.

Justice Gangopadhyay also dismissed the suspension order served on Maity on the VC's instruction last year.

The order was followed by a petition filed by Maity, accusing Chakrabarty of having a hand in removing him from the project by writing a letter to the secretary of the Department of Science & Technology (DST).

"Maity was part of a prestigious project for the university and removing him from the project was a step against the interest of Visva-Bharati. This was the reason why Justice Gangopadhyay said the VC must be removed from his post. In his order he asked the VC to ensure that the professor be reinstated to the international project within seven days," said advocate Samim Ahammed, Maity's lawyer.

Maity, a source said, was the principal investigator under the CERN project in Visva-Bharati since 2005 and brought research funding for the institution worth Rs 5 crore so far. Visva-Bharati had also earned around Rs 20 lakh in overheads to run the project.

The VC on May 17 last year had written to the secretary of the DST about disciplinary proceedings against Maity, who was suspended on May 4. He requested authorities to consider whether an individual (Maity) “having records of being deviant from the academic ethics” was suitable for the project.

Maity is among many on the campus critical of the VC and he took part in protests against the authorities. The disciplinary action, following which he was suspended, was initiated after he allegedly circulated an email critical of the authorities among a section of varsity teachers.

Within a few days of the VC's letter, the DST, which is under the Union ministry of science and technology, informed the VC about its decision to withhold sanction for the prestigious project that Maity was to execute.

The remark from the high court judge came amid murmurs that Chakrabarty had been trying to get an extension for a few months after his official five-year term ends this November. The Visva-Bharati University Faculty Association (VBUFA) has written to Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, urging him not to extend the VC's tenure.

Maity, a physicist of international renown, was part of a team that discovered the Higgs Boson Particle, in 2012. He was part of the renowned CERN Project. The name CERN is derived from the acronym for the French "Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire", or European Council for Nuclear Research, a provisional body founded in 1952.

A senior professor in Visva-Bharati said the comment of Justice Gangopadhyay was significant at a time when Chakrabarty — who allegedly has wanted to saffronise the campus throughout his term as VC — was desperately trying to get an extension from the ministry.

"No one on the campus wants the VC's extension because of his vindictive attitude towards the varsity teachers, staff and the veterans of Santiniketan. The remark that came from Calcutta High Court judge will at least help to open the eyes of the top brass in Delhi about why his extension, if accorded, will only be harmful to the campus and ideology of Rabindranath Tagore," said a senior varsity teacher.

A source said most of the BJP leaders in Bengal were also disappointed with Chakrabarty.

"Even a person like Justice Ganguly (Abhijit Gangopadhyay) commented publicly that the VC must be removed immediately. On the other side, the VC (after closing festivals like Pous Mela and Basanta Utsav) is trying to be 'ultra-BJP' to get an extension from Delhi," Anupam Hazra, a BJP national secretary wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) handle on Tuesday evening.

Responding to the order, Maity said the verdict would help Visva-Bharati resume work on the prestigious project.

"Today's order will help our team in Visva-Bharati to resume our study and research under the CERN project," he said.

Visva-Bharati's acting public relations officer Mahua Banerjee did not comment when asked about Justice Gangopadhyay's remark and order.