NAGPUR: Even though the city-based
National Law University (NLU-N) is often touted as chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’s dream project, his government continues step-motherly treatment to the premier institution, which is struggling for funds.
In an affidavit submitted to the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court on Monday, the state department of higher and technical education defended its move to allot more funds to NLU-Mumbai to the tune of RsRs18.29 crore than Nagpur (Rs4 crore) and Aurangabad (Rs2.71 crore), ignoring the fact that NLU-N has double intake of 120 students than others.
Filed by additional chief secretary
Sitaram Kunte, the affidavit stated that Mumbai was granted more funds for establishing its infrastructure and it was oldest among three NLUs to start operations from 2015-16. NLU-N commenced operations from 2016-17 while Aurangabad NLU from 2017-18.
A division bench comprising justices
Bhushan Gavai and Murlidhar Giratkar directed NLU-N counsel Prafulla Khubalkar to reply on government’s affidavit by Wednesday.
The court was hearing a PIL (No 57/2016) filed by Nagpur High Court Bar Association’s (HCBA) ex-president Arun Patil through counsel
Sudhir Puranik, who pointed out these discrepancies in the funds allocation to three NLUs.
In the last hearing, the court had sought a detailed explanation from the government over huge disparity in allotment of Rs27 crore funds to three NLUs.
Kunte, however, said there was no disparity and amount was released as per individual requirements. He said the department had conducted two meetings on June 6 and September 19 last year and decided to allot Rs5 crore to all three NLUs from forthcoming academic year (2018-19) to 2022-23 towards their administrative expenses.
“The proposal has been approved by executive and finance councils of NLUs and pending before the cabinet for approval. For two consecutive years — 2016-17 and 2017-18 — there is difficulty in assessment/evaluation of proposal submitted by the three NLUs with respect to the budgetary provisions,” Kunte said in his affidavit.
The affidavit was filed in response to HC’s stringent directives for explaining allocation of Rs27 crore proposed for three NLUs individually.
Denying any disparity, the secretary stated that they had released Rs85 crore so far for NLU-N. However, Khubalkar pointed out that maximum of them was for infrastructure which are in form of capital gains and hardly anything was left for administrative expenses.
“One may understand the lesser amount granted to NLU-N as it commenced only in last academic year. However, it is difficult to appreciate such a gross disparity between the amount allotted to NLU-Mumbai as against the amount allotted to Nagpur,” the court stated.
