The Governor’s House in West Bengal on Wednesday issued a show-cause notice to the vice-chancellors of all state universities for ‘ignoring’ Governor C.V. Ananda Bose’s instruction to submit weekly reports of university affairs to the Raj Bhavan.
The order from Governor’s House applied to six state universities in West Bengal: Kazi Nazrul University, Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, Bidhan Chandra Agricultural University, West Bengal State University, Kalyani University, and The University of Burdwan. On April 4th, the Governor’s House had instructed the VCs to submit weekly reports to the Raj Bhavan. The VC’s were also asked to take prior concurrence from the Raj Bhavan in all finance-related matters but after sending reminders, the Governor’s House failed to receive any response. As a result, the show-cause notice was issued.
As the Governor is the Chancellor of the state universities, tension had arisen between the Governor’s House and the state education department with the Education Minister Bratya Basu describing the move by Bose as an “action beyond his jurisdiction”. Basu then stated that his department was consulting legal brains in order to address the situation. A further dispute arose when Bose conducted spot visits to different state universities without giving prior intimation to the education department.
The case of show-cause notice to the VCs of the six state universities is still under observation and the Governor’s House is optimistic that the universities will follow the instruction in the future. Until then, the Governor’s office is expecting suitable action to address the situation.
