Standoff ends: Edu Dept withdraws its ads for VCs’ appointment after CM-Guv talks

The Bihar Department of Education has withdrawn advertisements for the appointment of vice chancellors of state universities, following a standoff with the Chancellor's office. The move comes after Bihar's Department of Education issued separate advertisements for the positions, causing confusion over the application process. The process for appointing VCs will now involve screening applications and interaction with the search committee. The incumbent VCs in several universities will complete their terms in September, and the last date for submitting applications is 27 August. This process was initiated to comply with a 2013 Supreme Court directive.

Two days after Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar called on Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar at the Raj Bhawan amid standoff between the Chancellor’s office and the state’s department of education, the latter on Friday withdrew all its advertisements issued earlier this week for the appointment of vice chancellors of state universities.

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“The following advertisements published by the department of education in various newspapers inviting applications for the post of vice chancellors are herby withdrawn,” said a communique from secretary, department of education, Baidyanath Yadav, with the details of all the seven advertisements. The advertisements had been issued by Yadav only.

Earlier in the day, Kumar, while talking to media persons, had also said there was no standoff and all were working for the betterment of education. “There is no issue. We want good education,” he said.

The standoff had emerged after Bihar’s department of education also issued separate advertisements for the appointment of VCs, the first time ever in the state, while the last date for submitting applications to the earlier advertisement issued by the Chancellor’s secretariat was drawing close. It created a piquant situation.

After Arlekar returned to Patna on Wednesday, Kumar met him to resolve the matter the same evening. Though there was no statement from the CM’s secretariat regarding the meeting, a communique from the Raj Bhawan said that the Governor and the CM discussed higher education and the issues concerning the universities to resolve them. The meeting had lasted around half an hour and was viewed as significant under the prevailing circumstances.

As the Raj Bhawan had already initiated the process for appointment of VCs in keeping with the state’s continued practice and applications had already been received to start the next process, now the decks are clear for the next stage involving screening of applications and interaction of the prospective candidates with the search committee constituted by the Raj Bhawan.

The incumbent VCs in Patna University, Lalit Narayan Mithila University (Darbhanga), Kameshwar Singh Darbhanga Sanskrit University, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University (Muzaffarpur), Jai Prakash University (Chapra), BN Mandal University (Madhepura) and Aryabhatta Knowledge University (Patna) are completing their term on and around September 20.

The last date for submitting applications for new appointments in August 27. After that, things would have to move fast to avoid ad hoc arrangements in the universities.

The ongoing process of the Raj Bhawan is the one initiated in line with the 2013 Supreme Court directives, which had upheld the quashing of the appointment of all VCs made during the tenure of the then Governor late Devanand Konwar and defined the process with provision of search committee and ‘meaningful and effective consultation’, and the later amendments carried out in that light in the Bihar state universities Act, 1976, and the Patna University Act, 1976, the same year.

The amended Acts made provision of a three-member search committees – two nominated by the chancellor and one by the state government. The search committee recommends a panel of 3-5 names for each university to the chancellor, who makes the appointments in consultation with the chief minister.

Y D Prasad, former director of AN Sinha Institute of Social Studies and retired head of history department at Patna University, said the real challenge would be to select the persons with academic excellence and integrity as VCs, if at all the Raj Bhawan as well as the government want to change the way state universities are running in the state.

“The Chancellor’s reflection comes through the appointments made. Even the persons in the search committees need to be above board. Unfortunately, the credibility of the institutions making such appointments need to be restored first, as they took a severe beating in the last few decades,” he said.

Prasad said the VCs appointed must be able to command respect both of teachers and students. “Both the Chancellor and the government should focus on one thing only — revamp of higher education institutions. The tussle between Chancellor and the government is nothing but a result of sheer politics. It gets blown up if the Chancellor is from a different party. Higher education needs to be spared from it,” he said.