Nagpur: Three important members on Nagpur University’s Management Council (MC) were conspicuous by their absence when it met on Tuesday to take major decisions regarding withdrawal of the decision of 2006 Board of Examinations (BoE), and prescribe course of action against serial offender Sunil Mishra.
On May 15 too, the Board of Examinations and Evaluation (BoEE) members were found to be reluctant to act against Mishra, who is known for gathering volumes of data on NU and government officials through RTIs. Mishra also gets involved in hundreds of litigations. Ultimately, the BoEE had empowered the VC to take a final decision.
A top officer, who attended the MC meeting on Tuesday, told TOI that Pro-VC Pramod Yeole, Governor’s nominee Milind Barahate, and joint director of technical education Gulabrao Thakre made last minute excuses to skip the meet, despite being aware of it well in advance.
NU had forwarded them notice of the meeting and a copy of the agenda on Monday.
Pro-VC Yeole couldn’t be contacted since he was out of town. Thakre said he did not make any last minute excuse to skip the meet, and he had informed the university about his prior engagements, which were important.
NU officials claimed that Thakre had told them that he had to “attend a court hearing”.
Barahate said he was out of town for personal reasons, and therefore had conveyed his inability to attend the meeting. However, as per the minutes, he couldn’t attend the meeting because of prior engagements.
The top officer claimed that Barahate had deliberately kept his mobile phone switched off almost the entire day. “University officials tried calling him before the start of the meeting. He knew we would have got the governor’s office to intervene, so he kept his cell phone off,” NU officials said.
The officials said the Pro-VC could have skipped the other meeting since the MC was dealing with a more important issue.
VC SP Kane said the MC needs 1/3rd strength as quorum. “There are 11 members but two are invitees, and don’t have powers to vote. So, of the nine remaining members, at least three have to be present to approve a decision in the MC,” he said.
As per the minutes, the meeting was held under the chairmanship of Kane and attended by registrar Puran Meshram and VC’s nominee GS Khadekar. This means Khadekar bailed out the VC, who would have had to approve the decisions against Mishra using provisions of Section 12(7) of the Act in the absence of numbers.
The other three members of MC who did not attend the meeting are secretary of higher education or his nominee (i.e. joint director of education); director of higher education or his nominee (i.e. joint director of education); and chancellor’s nominee Nachiket Tiwari. Their names are not mentioned in the minutes because they did not give any information about staying away from the meeting.
