One day before stepping down as director of GNLU Gandhinagar, Dr Bimal Patel was chastised in an official letter for apparently poaching three staffers of GNLU to Gujarat Maritime University (GMU), which operates on GNLU’s campus and is currently being run by Patel.
According to the Indian Express and Times of India, GMU registrar Sharad Daran sent the following email to Patel on 14 July:
The emails dated 13th July 2019 sent by you has been brought to the notice of Shri Mukesh Kumar, IAS, Provost, Gujarat Maritime University.
With respect to your rapid, unusual and untimely acceptance of resignation of certain employees of GNLU assigned charge at Gujarat Maritime University, I am directed to instruct you that, as the outgoing in-charge director of Gujarat Maritime University, you may refrain from taking any decision pertaining to Gujarat Maritime University without consulting the President/Provost of Gujarat Maritime University.
Reportedly, three staffers of GNLU who had been on deputation to GMU, where Patel is director in charge, had sent letters of resignation at GNLU 13 July and quickly accepted by Patel - in one reportedly within just over half-an-hour of having been sent.
Patel’s tenure as GNLU director ended on Monday 15 July, and he handed over to the new director Prof Sanjeevi Shanthakumar by Tuesday, 16 July.
Patel also has a new gig as officer on special duty at Raksha Shakti University at Lavad, Gandhinagar, expected to be director general soon, according to the Express report.
Prof Shanthakumar’s plans for GNLU
Patel’s GNLU successor Shanthakumar told the Express in a separate interview that he wanted to internationalise GNLU.
He said he would by next year attract the very first foreign students to the university, as well as activate the strong alumni network and use his contacts to attract foreign guest faculty and create international opportunities for GNLU teachers.
In-part, he said, he was keen to put in a bid to get GNLU a spot in unnamed “world rankings”.
“I know it would be difficult to get students from European countries or the United States but I have a good connect with law schools in southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, and Cambodia. So from next year, you will see foreign students at GNLU,” he told the Express.
The latter, is probably a reference to the similar ambitions of NLSIU Bangalore and the recent success of JGLS Sonepat to crack the QS global university rankings.
However, as we had reported above, getting into the QS rankings appears possible purely on two criteria, such as faculty student ratio and international faculty, rather than necessarily being a signifier of university quality.
That said, being on the ranking probably does attract more foreign students, so it could create a virtuous circle and also fill universities’ coffers with the fees paid by foreign students.
Finally, Shanthakumar also told the Express that he wanted to address the poor research at Indian universities: “In the field of law, we can create knowledge because content is indigenous and we don’t need to look to the West for content.
“So I am going to motivate each and every teacher to write a lot and publish articles so that we are known outside as a great research institute.”
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GNLU is one of the best law universities in India today and our aim will be to attract talented students. Professor Bimal Patel has set a great precedence in terms of infrastructure and administration and we will continue the momentum.
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/putting-gnlu-on-world-map-is-our-priority/articleshow/70252465.cms
Thus, because of your bias against Prof Patel you are not mentioning how he has laid a wonderful platform for the new Director. Any future achievements by the new Director, including world rankings, will be because of Prof Patel.
Quote: Bhimal, pls stop it with the anon comments and go back to work.
Tight slap to Legally India and some indisciplined students planting fake news to Legally India.
ahmedabadmirror.indiatimes.com/ahmedabad/education/director-takes-charge-at-gnlu/articleshow/70251238.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
I think GNLU is in safe hand, nor pray for Raksha Shakti University.
That said, there have definitely been legitimate issues and gripes around the way he had run the institution in a very autocratic and non-transparent manner, as evidenced by episodes such as the one reported by the IE and TOI above, for instance, as well as statements made by high court judges in several orders and policies surrounding disciplining students, etc. And at the end of the day, in our limited experience, Patel was never very sensible in dealing with or responding to bad news, criticism or disagreement that are part and parcel of NLU admin, which could explain some of the bad PR surrounding his tenure in the mainstream media as well as LI.
In any case, all the above are legitimate stories that media should be covering at public institutions such as NLUs. By contrast, ignoring those stories and instead showering praise on a law school administration and writing puff pieces, would not evidence "professional ethics, integrity and independence" in media, but quite the opposite.
Then again, no VC is perfect and yes, running a law school is a tough job and, yes, it could have been much worse...
Regarding 'takedowns', I disagree. Patel clearly has had a tendency to ruffle feathers during his tenure - why else did the GMU registrar send the above letter? Why did a high court judge say in a judgment that Patel had turned GNLU "into an oligarchy where all decisions are taken, reviewed and implemented by a select few, and students are casually denied basic human rights and natural justice"? www.legallyindia.com/lawschools/bimal-patel-has-turned-gnlu-gandhingar-into-a-human-rights-violating-oligarchy-agrees-hc-overturning-malafide-unreasonable-illegal-frisking-decision-20160505-7556
And there are many other similar ones in our archives.
So pray tell, exactly what should IE or TOI or LI or other media have done about true and factual stories such as the above? Bury them because overall he's mostly done a good job? Sweep such stories under the carpet, because it's not nice to be critical? Soft pedal on them because it might upset Patel or his supporters? Not report them because Patel doesn't comment on negative stories? Only copy-paste fluffy GNLU press releases about how hunky dory things are? Include some subjective non-journalistic boilerplate into every negative story about how Patel has also done some good things?
At the end of the day, negative news is going to be part and parcel of any VC job (or other jobs with a position of power, such as BCI chairman, politics, etc) and it's one of the media's highest duties to report on negative things that the powers would rather were not reported. Nearly everything else is just PR, and, in my view, somewhat optional.
So, if a VC doesn't know how to handle bad news, such negative coverage should be on the VC and the facts themselves, and not the media...
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