Within a month of his controversial appointment as the interim Vice Chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University, “severe intimidation” and “misbehaviour” by members of the Trinamul Congress-backed West Bengal Government Employees’ Federation has forced former Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee to stop attending office and work from home.

The allegations were leveled by Mukherjee who felt that it was impossible to work at the institution, named after Rabindranath Tagore, and “hold on to self-respect” on grounds of not just security threats but also because of the ignominy of being called names and lewd gestures made at him in his office by employees of the university who owe their allegiance to the ruling dispensation of the state.

The ad-hoc appointment of Mukherjee, the former Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, to temporarily carry out responsibilities of the institution’s vice chancellor was given by Governor CV Ananda Bose, the ex-officio Chancellor, in early July and have, since then, drawn flak from various corners of the state administration on grounds of “gross violation of University Grants Commission norms”. Challenging the interim VC appointments made by the Governor to RBU and, at least 11, other state-run universities the Bengal government has already moved the Supreme Court where the matter is being currently heard. The government has also pushed through the West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Bill 2023 which seeks to replace the Governor as Chancellor of all state-aided universities with the chief minister, by virtue of his/her office.

At the ground level, though, the opposition to the appointment seems to have long breached the line of legitimate protest and has allegedly crossed over to the domain of non-cooperation, insults, harassment and even threats against the interim VC, forcing him to apprehend lack of personal security. The allegations, though, were rubbished by the employees’ forum which called Mukherjee’s statements “far from truth” and made as a result of “over reaction”.

“Within the first few days of taking over, the employees at the university made their position clear. They accused me of illegally occupying the chair and demanded that I resigned immediately. They have been storming into my room, making chaos at the drop of a hat, shouting and threatening me and even made lewd gestures. I was told that some even threw and shattered glass bottles on the outdoor surface of the university’s administrative building as a mark of threat. Under the circumstances, it is difficult to work with self-respect and I have decided to work from home for the time being,” Mukherjee, who has stopped going to his office on campus since Monday, told The TelegraphOnline.

“They have accused a teetotaler like me of having consumed alcohol inside my office. They have obstructed and squatted before my car, preventing me from leaving campus. How can I work under such circumstances?” the interim VC said.

“I have asked the Registrar to fortify the administrative building with iron grills to prevent unauthorized entry. I will keep working from home till that work is completed,” Mukherjee added.

Asked whether he could politically identify his harassers, Mukherjee said: “Since they keep raising slogans hailing chief minister Mamata Banerjee and another leader Abhishek Banerjee, I have reasons to believe that the employees owe their loyalty to the Trinamul Congress party.”

Mukherjee confirmed that he brought the matter to the notice of Governor Bose. “The Chancellor has permitted me to act the way I deem fit under the present circumstances and assured me that he would do his best to implement campus discipline,” Mukherjee said.

But is the former Chief Justice reassured? “There’s a limit to which the Governor can act in this situation. I see this as a law and order situation and that’s a state subject,” he remarked.

The former judge stated that he made no attempts to reach out to the state education department. “The state government is not my appointing authority. The Chancellor is. And I have intimated my reporting authority. The education minister is welcome to discuss the situation with me. But I have no business in reaching out to him on my own,” Mukherjee said.

Sandip Ganguly, president of the RBU unit of the state employees federation said: “There is no question of misbehaving with or threatening the VC. We had gone to his office to submit a memorandum with some of our demands regarding the employees. Those demands have been met. But our major demand was installation of CCTV cameras inside the campus in the wake of the Jadavpur University incident which the VC is reluctant to fulfill despite having already spent a month in office. The allegations he is making are far from the truth and he is simply overreacting.”

Asked whether he thinks that employees are the right authority to decide whether the VC’s appointment is legitimate or not, Ganguly said, “Of course not. We have no business deciding on that. That would be decided in higher forums. We want the VC to return to the university and we can assure everyone that there’s no hindrance to the work atmosphere inside the campus.”