NAGPUR: Just like Senate and Academic Council nominations, Nagpur University (NU)
Board of Studies (BoS) too would be dominated by RSS-BJP backed Shikshan Manch which has its members in brute majority now.
The NU recently nominated 200 members to 50 BoS which lack transparency and violate the Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016, as has been seen in previous two occasions also.
On February 8, the NU had notified a list of 10 persons nominated by chancellor
Ch Vidyasagar Rao on its Senate. The names were notified even before submission of police verification report by five of the 10 named in the list. One of them is Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha (BJYM) leader
Shivani Dani who had created ruckus on the NU main building premises on February 14, 2014 and damaged property.
On January 31, vice-chancellor SP Kane nominated eight principals to the Academic Council but with a set of completely new names, who belonged to Shikshan Manch. In July last year, the VC had forwarded a different list to the chancellor.
According to Section 71(17) of the Act, the VC has to frame direction or statutes for norms and procedure to be followed while nominating members on statutory bodies.
VC Kane conveniently skipped the above provision to accommodate members from the Manch, NU outfits alleged.
VC Kane didn’t answer to TOI’s calls.
Anil Dhage, former secretary of Nagpur University Teachers’ Association (NUTA), said it is not clear what procedure the VC followed to nominate members on the BoS. “This is not the first time this has been done. NUTA had demanded that the NU issue direction or guidelines as per the Act. As on date, people are unaware which procedure was followed by the VC,” he said.
Dhage said other universities like Gondwana and Amravati too have preferred candidates from a particular outfit but they have issued directions regarding norms and procedure. “The spirit of the Act is to give people a fair chance by laying down the procedure and qualification criteria,” he said adding, this exercise lacks transparency and violates the Act.
DK
Agrawal, senior member of
Secular Panel, said a couple of candidates are outright unqualified while many belong to a particular group. “The names clearly show it was done to please the party in power,” he said.
Denying the claims by opponents, Shikshan Manch coordinator Kalpana Pande said all groups have equal representation in the BoS. “Our candidates are hard workers. They have been doing good work for several years yet they never got a chance,” she said.
Nagpur University
