NUJS Kolkata advertised for a vice chancellor (VC) on its website on Tuesday, one month after constituting the VC search committee that is to move forward a process now overdue by seven months.
For the post of VC the advertisement invites applications from candidates with at least 10 years of experience as a law professor in a university or equivalent organisation, proven leadership, administrative and teaching and research credentials and ordinarily not above 65 years of age.
Applications are to be submitted to the law school before 5pm on 30 November 2018.
Justice Arun Mishra, Calcutta HC chief justice Debashis Kar Gupta and West Bengal advocate general Kishore Dutta comprising the search committee will recommend the nominees for the post from among the applicants and NUJS chancellor and chief justice of India will select and appoint the next vice chancellor from among those nominees.
Since April NUJS is being headed by acting VC and retired judge Amit Talukdar after former VC Prof Ishwara Bhat resigned that month under pressure from students protests against his administrative performance.
The law school’s executive council came under pressure from the its student body last month after it re-constituted the VC search committee that would recommend Bhat’s successor but remained opaque about next steps on the VC appointment process in its 29 September meeting.
NUJS published advertisments for the vacancy of registrar and accounts officer at the law school on 5 October.
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- Acceptance of only postal applications means some applications may get "misplaced".
- Even if excellent candidates apply, the selection process can be fixed. We all know that a mediocre person currently working in a private college in a neighbouring state is lobbying for the job. He can be chosen if a lot of weight is given to seniority.
- The registrar position can be be handed to a puppet or someone incompetent (the great book reviewer, for example).
- The selection process can be conducted during holidays, to minimise intervention from the students. In particular, the names of applicants can be kept hidden so that students do not stage a coup and declare their preference over the person who is lobbying hard.
Registered post?
1)Manoj Sinha
Bio: www.nujs.edu/faculty/mksinha-nujs.pdf
Prospects: A very strong candidate. Clearly fulfils the 10 year requirement, has strong admin experience, publications and good university education (DU, Nottingham, JNU). Taught at NUJS before. A stint as NUJS VC will come at the right time for him and will lead to bigger things in future. While he may think about continuing at ILI and aim for a VC-ship at NLUD, that seems to be planning too far ahead. Also, he is not going to have a huge ego and pursue self-interest as some of the other people in our list may do, which is a huge plus. A minus, however, is that his personality is such that he may not be very aggressive against some of the corrupt elements running the place.
Our odds: High to very high
2) Sudhir Krishnaswamy
Bio: watson.brown.edu/southasia/files/southasia/imce/people/Faculty/VisitingScholars/KrishnaswamyCVJune2017.pdf
Prospects: Possibly the best academic credentials in this list, and also has admin experience too. May see it as a stepping stone to NLSIU. He has used NUJS as a stepping stone before. He was appointed as a professor by MP Singh at NUJS in 2009 at the age of 34. It was a direct promotion from assistant professor to associate professor. After a short stint went to head Azim Premji's law department. Also served for a year as "visiting professor" at ILI. It's possible that a sympathetic committee may add the ILI experience and consider his experience to be worth 10 years. However, one reason he may not apply is that the pay at NUJS is low. Also, he may get NLSIU on the strength of Azim Premji admin experience alone. He will also not want to wade into controversies that will inevitably arise, compared to Azim Premji.
Our odds: Medium
3) NK Chakrabarti
Bio: kls.kiit.ac.in/management-director-profile.html
Prospects: Obviously not as high profile or with impressive qualifications, but may get selected for other reasons. Will be interesting to see how SJA will respond.
Our odds: Medium to high
4) Shamnad Basheer
Prospects: There is a reason why he has sought an "honorary professorship" at a nondescript place like Nirma. It has kept his academic progression intact. Thus, like Sudhir, he just about fulfils the 10 year requirement. Will he apply? Possibly. Will he be selected? Possibly. Will he make a great VC? Good but not great, because a VC needs to be composed, pragmatic and averse to controversy.
Our odds: Medium
5) T Ramakrishna, NLSIU
Bio: www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/meetings/en/2010/wipo_cr_lic_ge_10/pdf/ramakrishna.pdf
Prospects: Underwhelming CV, but NLSIU is NLSIU. Best reason for applying is a stepping stone to make a bid for NLSIU VC-ship, for which he is currently not in contention but will become with a post like this. He will just take a temporary leave from NLSIU.
Our odds: Medium to high
Our dark horse picks:
1) Nagaraj, NLSIU: for same reason as Ramakrishna
2) Vivekanandan, NALSAR (now at Bennett University): Stepping stone theory
3) Ved Kumari, DU
4) Someone from JNU's international law department
5) Srikrishan Deva Rao, NLUO
Sudhir is not a professor at all forget about his 10 years
[...]
Shamnad is not a professor now and he is not at all interested in VC position
Ramakrishan will never leave NLSIU, Bangalore for any reason at any cost
Nagaraj is awaiting the VC vancancy at NLSIU that will take place in May, 2019, we will not out side Bangalore
Vivekandan is enjoying huge salary worth 10 lakhs at Bernett university, Delhi and he will not venture for VC position which gives hardly 2,50,000
Ved Kumari is a candidate for NLUD next year
There is no professor available in JNU international law department
SKD Rao is trying for second term inn Odisha itself
Just wait till end-November and then the names will be out.
It's also possible that Rao may get offered Deanship of Jio Institute law school. Mukesh Ambani desperately needs credibility in the public eye, and having a former VC of NLSIU (even if unpopular) will give Jio that credibility.
The text of petition to the ACJ has hyperboles but the message is rather depressing. If the Calcutta HC has a tradition of opacity and nepotism then its representatives in our EC and VC search committee are not really expected to favour sunlight. No wonder they hate students for demanding transparency. That's challenging the status quo.
Justice Talukdar was supposed to clean up the mess and not add to it. The only people who can help us get of this mess is us - not the self-serving faculty, alumni, so-called sympathetic souls in the Bar,Bench or elsewhere.
We can of course debate whether #PIBOut did more damage than good. But it was the only time when the many -students- showed what happens when we stop fearing the few. Someone had mentioned in an older post that the SJA was outmaneuvered by a section of the EC when PIB was shunted out. Hopefully wiser now, the SJA must do something meaningful and play it right this time.
From Bengal (or having a connection to Calcutta) -
NK Chakraborty (CU Law Dept now KIIT Law School)
Gangotri Chakraborty (NBU Law Dept)
IG Ahmed (CU Law Dept now with Sikkim University Law Dept)
SS Chatterjee (CU Law Dept now with Heritage Law College)
Manik Chakraborty (Burdwan University now Amity Kolkata Law)
Rathin Bandyopadhyay (NBU Law Dept)
Bhavani Prasad Panda (ex-MNLU Mumbai VC)
Elsewhere in India -
Kamala Sankaran (TNNLS VC)
Ved Kumari (DU Law Dept)
SC Raina (HPNLU VC)
Vijender Kumar (MNLU Nagpur VC)
GS Bajpai (NLUD Registrar)
Paramjit Jaswal (RGNUL VC)
Prof Raina had previously applied for NLU Lucknow position. Professors Sankaran and Kumari would prefer NLUD as will Bajpai and Jaswal. As a second option, NUJS scores better compared to NLUs in Ranchi, Patna and Raipur.
Strongly doubt anyone from IIMs, JNU, Bennet and Jindal Law Schools will apply. Lord Taluk and his friends have done a good job at making NUJS unattractive. They set the cue with driving away MKS.
Someone had mentioned in a comment that the NUJS Regulations demand that the Chair of the VC search committee (nominee of the Chancellor) must be an academic. That has certainly not been followed. Also the UGC rules probably demand that there should be a nominee of the UGC in the search committee.
So what now, suffer a VC who is clearly a political appointee?
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