West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose on Sunday appointed interim vice-chancellors for six state-run universities, an official said.
Bose is the Chancellor of state-run universities in West Bengal.
The governor named Professor Achintya Saha as the interim VC of Murshidabad University, Professor B B Parida for MG University, Professor Nikhil Chandra Ray for Coochbehar Panchanan University and Professor Rathin Bandyopadhyay for Alipurduar University, he said.
Bose also appointed Professor Dilip Maity as interim VC of Biswa Bangla University and retired IPS officer C M Raveendran as interim VC of North Bengal University, he added.
The Educationists Forum, a pro-TMC platform of former VCs and senior university professors, described the latest appointments as an "open defiance of the power and authority of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India", while accusing the governor of continuing "illegalities in the sphere of higher education".
In a statement, forum spokesperson Om Prakash Mishra said, "Today, he has once again nominated persons of his choice in a number of universities even while the entire subject matter of this type of nomination is under challenge in a special leave petition filed by the State of West Bengal in the Supreme Court." This is a direct affront to the legal process, the Acts of the concerned universities and constitutes a direct challenge to the authority of the Hon'ble Supreme Court, the statement by the forum said.
"The academic community is shocked and surprised to see the names of academicians nominated by the Hon'ble Chancellor. All those nominated by His Excellency are interestingly either from outside the state or from outside the ambit of the Higher Education Department of West Bengal," the statement added.
Mishra told PTI, "As per reports, the professional track record of some of these academics nominated by Chancellor have cast serious doubt and confusion in the public domain and such nominations appear to be a direct insult to the high profile internationally acclaimed intellectual tradition of Bengal."
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