NU suffers losses due to haste in announcing grad constituency poll

Nagpur: Two days after Nagpur bench of Bombay high court forced Nagpur University to defer its graduate constituency polls, it has now came to fore that the latter suffered heavy losses to the tune of lakhs due to haste shown by its vice chancellor Subhash Chaudhari and pro-VC Sanjay Dudhe in declaring election dates.
NU officials told TOI that they were compelled to print over 3.5 lakh ballot papers by VC after he hastily announced new poll dates, which gave them just four to five days to complete the task.
Despite their warning that those may go waste, if HC ruled against the university, VC ignored their suggestions and directed them to print the ballot papers and make other arrangements to conduct the graduate constituency polls on December 17.
“We toiled throughout day and night to print the ballot papers and also to make other arrangements in such a short time, despite knowing the outcome of HC’s verdict. Not only had our hard work gone waste, but NU also suffered losses. The NU funds come from the students’ fees and other educational activities, which the VC and pro-VC are wasting due to their ‘unwise decisions’. These losses should be recovered from the duo,” the aggrieved official told TOI.
TOI had highlighted the issue in a series of reports on how the duo of VC and pro-VC, were not only bringing disrepute to NU in its centenary year but also causing severe financial losses to it due to their flawed and illegal decisions ever since they took over the reins. Even the students’ community had taken a hit of their unmindful decisions, as per the officials.
More academics are coming forward over the way the NU affairs were being run by the current dispensation.
Former principal of NU’s Dr Ambedkar Law College Shirkant Komawar, also the former Senate member, flayed the NU top brass stating that now the university could not conduct any polls without amending Section 62 of the Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016.
In a post on social media, Komawar said even if NU would start the process immediately, it would still not be in a position to conduct elections before January end. “It will be a gross violation of the mandate of Section 62. Can chancellor BS Koshyari, who is chairman of the Senate, preside over such authority whose constitution suffers from doubtful legality? Therefore, the only legal way to constitute the Senate of and the Management Council for the year 2022 onward, will be to amend section 62, appropriately,” he said.