Supreme Court Seeks Governor, State’s Stand on Unanimous Picks for 12 West Bengal Vice-Chancellors
Supreme Court on Monday sought formal instructions from West Bengal Governor and State on unanimous recommendations for 12 university Vice-Chancellors
SC asks WB Governor and State Government to respond to Search Committee’s unanimous Vice-Chancellor recommendations
The Supreme Court on Monday noted that the Search-cum-Selection Committee has unanimously recommended 12 candidates for appointment as Vice-Chancellors to 12 universities in West Bengal.
The Court sought the views of the University Chancellor (Governor) and the State Government on these recommendations.
The Bench of Justices Surya Kant and N. Kotiswar Singh directed Attorney General R. Venkataramani and Senior Advocate Jaideep Gupta to obtain formal instructions from the Chancellor and the State Government, respectively.
“After considering academic record, experience and opinions of the Chief Minister and Hon’ble Chancellor, and the written vision statements of the candidates, the Search-cum-Selection Committees have given their preference list for 15 universities. The report reveals that for 12 universities, the Search-cum-Selection Committee was unanimous. For the remaining 3 universities, two different preference lists are prepared by different groups within the Committee,” the Court observed.
With respect to West Bengal State University and Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University, the Court noted that the Committee would be holding interactions with candidates on Monday.
The Bench stated: “As of now, it seems to us that there shall not be any controversy with respect to appointment of the 12 VCs where the Committee has given unanimous opinion. With a view to facilitate such appointments, photostat copy of the unanimous recommendations made by the Committee, along with forwarding letter of Justice UU Lalit, has been handed over to learned AG as well as Sh. Jaideep Gupta, learned senior counsel for the State… They are requested to have formal instructions in terms of the observations made hereinabove.”
The Court also clarified that, with respect to the West Bengal State University, the Search-cum-Selection Committee shall reconsider the originally recommended candidates in alphabetical order and fix their inter-se merit.
The matter will now be taken up again on Friday, i.e. September 26.
Notably, on September 1, Senior Advocate Jaideep Gupta had informed the Court that the case was currently listed for September 26 but noted that former Chief Justice U.U. Lalit’s report, submitted in connection with the matter, was already with the Registry and had urged for a shorter date. To this, the Bench had preponed the hearing date.
The Supreme Court has previously directed both sides to work towards a resolution and had also sought the assistance of Justice (Retd.) U.U. Lalit in exploring a framework to settle the issues.
The case has wide implications for higher education governance in West Bengal, with the fate of several university appointments hanging in balance amid the continuing standoff between the Raj Bhavan and the State.
With the matter now advanced, the Court is expected to take up Justice Lalit’s report and chart out the future course of action when it hears the case on September 22.
It is to be noted that the Supreme Court in January 2025 had granted more time to West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose in order to finalise the appointment process for vice-chancellors in the state's universities.
On 9 December, 2024 the Supreme Court was told that the West Bengal Governor had appointed full-term vice-chancellors for six universities and five more would be cleared soon.
Previously in November 2024, the Apex Court had refused to intervene in appointing vice-chancellors at West Bengal universities, following a report that the committee led by former Justice U.U. Lalit had already submitted its recommendations to the West Bengal Chief Minister.
In July 2024, the Supreme Court had appointed former Chief Justice of India U U Lalit as chairman of the Search-cum-Selection Committees for appointment of Vice Chancellors in all state universities in West Bengal following a "rift" between the TMC government and the Governor, leading to "chaos" in such institutions.
The Court had also nominated eminent educationists, scientists, jurists, subject experts and administrators etc for the purpose of empanelment on the committee. It invoked its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to do complete justice in this matter and passed the common order for constitution of Search-cum-Selection Committee for all the subject Universities.
Earlier, in March 2023, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court had quashed the appointment of Vice Chancellors in 29 state-run universities. It was also claimed that the state government had appointed or reappointed VCs of 24 state universities as well as extended the tenure of vice-chancellors without following the prescribed norms of the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Case Title: State of West Bengal v. Dr. Sanat Kumar Ghosh