President Ram Nath Kovind had to review his decision for not complying with the Human Resources Department (HRD) Ministry’s suggestion. The information received under the Right to Information (RTI) Act reveal that the government had asked the President to overturn his decision on the appointment of Visva Bharati University Vice-Chancellor (V-C). He was asked to do so because he ignored HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar’s recommendation for the post and went ahead with Swapan Kumar Dutta instead.
The development becomes significant as this was the first time that Rashtrapati Bhavan received such a proposal from the government after the President had approved the appointment of a candidate, reports The Indian Express.
Javadekar, on November 13, 2017, had backed Sankar Kumar Nath’s name for the post. Nath is a teacher of geophysics in the geology department at IIT-Kharagpur.
Dutta is an agricultural scientist and has served as acting V-C of Visva Bharati for close to two years. Another name shortlisted for the post was P N Mishra. He is from Institute of Management Studies at Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya (DAVV) in Indore.
The HRD Ministry had asked Kovind to reconsider his decision, saying that Dutta lacked the “leadership qualities and attributes suitable to the environment of Visva Bharati”.
Dutta’s tenure as Acting V-C was eventful with teachers often protesting his decisions. There were protests in January with two sections of teachers writing separately to the HRD Ministry, one wanted Dutta as permanent V-C and the other wanted a new head.
Visva Bharati is the only central university which has the Prime Minister as its Chancellor.