Raj Bhavan-Bengal govt tiff set to aggravate as Guv appoints 6 more interm V-Cs

In what could aggravate the tussle between Raj Bhavan and the Secretariat in West Bengal, the Governor's House in Kolkata made an official announcement on Sunday evening about Governor C.V. Ananda Bose's decision to appoint interim vice-chancellors for six state universities.

According to sources, what has irked the state education department further is that one of the six interim vice-chancellors appointed by the Governor is a retired IPS officer.

The University of North Bengal is one of the six state universities where the announcement or appointment of interim vice- chancellors was made on Sunday evening.

The Governor has appointed retired IPS officer C.M. Ravindran for that post.

The other five state universities where such interim vice- chancellors have been appointed include Murshidabad University, Mahatma Gandhi University, Panchanan Barma University, Alipurduar University and Biswa Bangla University.

The Education Department has raised objections to such appointments of vice-chancellors on two counts.

The first objection is that the appointments were done without any discussion with or the concurrence of the state education.

The second point of objection is regarding appointment of a retired IPS officer as the interim vice-chancellor of University of North Bengal.

"This is not the first time that the Governor has appointed any retired IPS officer as the interim vice-chancellors of any state university. Previously too, he had appointed M.S. Wahab, also a retired IPS officer as an interim vice-chancellor for Aliah University.

"As per norms, only a university teacher with 10 years of experience of teaching as a professor at the university level can be appointed as a vice-chancellor of any university. But do these retired IPS officers have that qualification?" questioned a state education department official.