NUJS Kolkata is perhaps an inch closer to the appointment of a new vice chancellor (VC) and a permanent registrar and accounts officer after protracted periods of working with temporary arrangements for these posts, according to an email shared by the Student Juridical Association (SJA) with its members.
However, students have allegedly been kept in the dark about the timeline and exact process of their next VC’s appointment, whoever that may turn out to be.
The students have now made a 10,000 word submission to the executive council (EC) and the search committee (read full submissions below).
The NUJS executive council (EC) had rectified an anomaly in NUJS’ new VC search committee by removing the state government member from the committee and reducing its size to three, as is required under regulations, the SJA said in its email.
However, the EC has neither referred to this search committee in the minutes of its latest meeting held on 29 September, nor did the NUJS administration provide the SJA access to any minutes of the search committee’s meeting, therefore leaving the timeline for VC appointment in the grey yet again.
Furthermore, the appointment of a permanent registrar who would be appointed through the advertisement now published by NUJS, would be subject to removal if the Calcutta high court were to decided that former dismissed registrar Surajit Mukhhopadhyay should be reinstated as NUJS’ registrar.
NUJS has functioned without a permanent registrar since Mukhhopadhyay was dismissed in 2016 for alleged financial mismanagement. He has been litigating against his dismissal in the Calcutta high court.
Search committee
In its meeting, the EC had removed the West Bengal government nominee Suparno Moitra and reconstituted the committee as a three-member panel comprising of the Chief Justice of India’s nominee, Justice Arun Mishra, the EC nominee, Calcutta HC chief justice Debashis Kar Gupta, and general council nominee, the West Bengal advocate general Kishore Dutta.
The reconstituted three-member committee also had its first meeting on 29 September, finally, during the EC meeting; all search committee members are also a part of the NUJS EC.
During this overlapping meeting of the EC and the search committee it was decided to advertise for a VC for NUJS within two weeks, according to the SJA’s sources within the EC. However, the final EC minutes apparently did not make any mention of this decision.
NUJS acting registrar Sikha Sen allegedly refused to share the minutes of the search committee’s meeting with the SJA because it had no interest or stake in the matter of appointment of NUJS’ VC, according to the SJA’s email to its members.
According to one student, with the search committee minutes deliberately not finalised and released, the “VC’s advertisement is unlikely to be released before the holidays despite an explicit resolution stating the advertisement has to be released within two weeks from the date of the meeting”, i.e. 29 September.
The SJA had alleged in its representation to the EC that there has been a “policy paralysis and continuing financial stalemate” ever since Talukdar took charge in April this year as temporary VC after the ouster of former VC Prof Ishwara Bhat.
When we contacted NUJS acting vice chancellor justice (VC) Amit Talukdar by phone today, beginning to ask him for comment on the process, he said: “I cannot speak to you, please excuse me.”
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Other law schools interested in protesting against inept regimes should take lessons from this about how NOT to do things.
19286fqwEbEYv9ourGLCn4gjtfd5NbIQC4XJy5020540/tmc-joiningjpg.jpg
www.millenniumpost.in/kolkata/kargil-war-veteran-2-others-join-trinamool-congress-277419
1. He is a TC party member (and BTW, TMC was Tamil Manila Congress. A now defunct party. Trinamool is TC)
2. He was the government nominee.
3. He's been removed.
Also there are rumours that rival factions within the party in power and their friends in the judiciary and bureaucracy are vying for influence.
The new CJ is not known to be a power broker. But he retires on Dec 31. Lord Taluk and AG want the entire process dragged out till the model code of conduct for national elections get declared. That will buy them some more months. SJA and students will have a tough time maintaining their verve till then.
Look at how students at NLU Ranchi and CNLU have been numbed. Similar playbook here as well.
The VC search and selection has always been shrouded in opacity. Even after the process is completed, information is not disclosed properly. For example, when Prof MP Singh tenure ended NUJS had a good reputation. How is it that we only attracted PIB, NSG and KIV? The last one had actually been thrown out of Pune University Law due to proven sexual misconduct and he reportedly again did that in IIT KGP Law. At least that's what the SJA petition has to say quoting Times of India.
NSG has a reputation as an expert on IP Law. The record is uneven when it comes to administration perhaps. But how did PIB top the charts? Was NUJS so bad then that we could only manage these rotten apples barring NSG and maybe some others who never made it to the shortlist?
If NUJS was that unattractive then think what will happen now when Lord Taluk and his friends are deliberately scarring NUJS and scaring away the few good administrators who would have been interested.
I strongly urge the SJA to file RTIs or do something to rifle through the VC search process. It has made some very progressive suggestions in the petition to search committee (I bothered to go through it) based on some good practices being followed in India. That's a good beginning. But we know that Lord Taluk is being worse than PIB. So the next steps will need to be taken
I support #OccupyNUJS
A. Indian academics based abroad, at Associate Professor rank or higher:
1. Shyam Balganesh, UPenn (NLSIU alum)
2. Tarunabh Khaitan, Oxford (NLSIU alum, hails from Kolkata/Bengal)
3. Dev Gangjee, Oxford (NSLIU alum, hails from Kolkata/Bengal)
4.Shubajit Basu, Leeds (Calcutta University alum, hails from Kolkata/Bengal)
5. Prabha Kotiswaran, King's College (NLSIU alum)
6. Deepa Badrinarayana, Chapman University US (NLSIU alum)
7. Shubhankar Dam (NUJS alum)
8. Gitanjali Gill, Northumbria (DU alum)
9. Vrinda Narain, McGill (DU alum)
10. V Umakanth, NUS (NLSIU alum)
11. Neha Jain, Minnesota (NLSIU alum)
12. Surya Deva, Hong Kong (DU alum)
B. Senior academics based in India:
1. Bharat Desai (JNU)
2. Ved Kumari (DU)
3. NS Gopalakrishnan (CUSAT)
4. Amita Dhanda (NALSAR)
5. Anurag Agarwal (IIM Ahmedabad)
6. VC Vivekanandan (NALSAR, now Dean at Bennett University)
C. Younger academics based in India (professor rank and above):
1. Lavanya Rajamani
2. Shamnad Basheer
3. Sudhir Krishnaswamy
4. Manoj Sinha
5. Mrinal Satish
6. VK Unni (IIM Calcutta)
7. Lawrence Liang (if you're willing to overlook the sexual harassment thing)
Degrees, including those acquired abroad, mean little beyond a point. NUJS needs an honest, silo-breaker academic with a verifiable record of good administration and resource generation skills. We cannot be transit halts for preening academics or timeserving academic bureaucrats. NUJS was that for some in your list. I do not doubt their academic credentials. But as with marriage, those folks are overrated.
Before you belt out more names why don't you give a good reason why anyone of these folks should even think of NUJS? What can NUJS offer? Mountain Dew challenge - dar kay agey jeet hain? Khatron kay Khiladi?
Tell me what can you offer Dr Prabha Kotiswaran? A few years ago her law school received a donation of GBP 80 million (hence the change in name). That has not stopped others from donating
generously.
Here is something for perspective. NUJS owing to Surajit scam and other such "minor" wrinkles was forced to refund Rs 2.85 crores to UGC. That included a significant chunk of money for expansion and upgrade of hostel accommodation. Tell me are your tripling days over? Better check in with seniors or alumni who had it worse.
Ever since Lord Taluk took over, the university finances have gone into a tailspin. With distance education related refunds, litigation fees, hikes on the back of erroneous pay to DEOs, Noojies will be paying more than 150% of the running expenses of the university. Soon this university will be running on fumes.
Lord Taluk has a solution. Empty out and scare away good faculty. Plead financial emergency and request for state assistance. And we all know what happens next.
Also with many of the names in your list be careful what you wish for. All that glitters is not gold.
@Guest is right. Suparno Moitra (until recently hobnobbing with the BJP) is a political stooge. He was recommended into the search committee for a political reason and therefore likely to enter NUJS in some capacity.
@ Stop Moaning tell that to the PA. SJA despite its missteps has run an evidence-led campaign against the ills that plague this university. What have the so-called permanent faculty and staff done? They endlessly leech the university coffers. Each DEO currently draws Rs 70k/month! Fine. To do what?? Watch videos of scantily clad girls twerking while messing up accounts and academic records?
We are blessed with a vile and self-serving faculty lot who would minutely read UGC rules for increase in salaries and perks but plead ignorance when it comes to UGC norms governing distance and online education courses; faculty recruitment; student entitlements etc. What spine have they shown?
The Justice League claim that they do not have the baggage of distance education mess on them. Are they speaking the whole truth? Also what explains their conspiracy of silence while the mess was being played out then or even now when no significant progress has been made by the good Lord Taluk.
Despite their "permanent" status why did they go hiding during PIB tenure? And why do they hate students and SJA for posing inconvenient questions such as irregularities in faculty recruitment throughout 2012-2017; non-implementation of the Justice PN Sinha Report etc? They are no different from the Injustice League and would love to see a weak SJA leadership or none.
The real tragedy has been Lord Taluk. He was not expected to play politics. He sure can and likely did during his time in the Bar and on the Bench. But he was not expected to play favourites here and encourage faculty factionalism especially when he never forgets to remind that he is not drawing remuneration; is here for a short period and will happily resign whenever asked. That trick worked initially but not anymore.
Lord Taluk fully intends to regularise his stay and will resign only when his political masters let him. PIB had to strike a political deal on two campus; increased student intake; domiciliary reservation et al to get a second tenure. SJA may think that their evidence against PIB resulted in his ouster but they are mistaken. PIB had become a liability for his political masters and their friends in the judiciary. Unbeknownst to the SJA (who stupidly believed that they have a sympathetic audience in the EC) the powers that be used student agitation as cover to install their political appointee - Lord Taluk!! Can we really fault the SJA if they got fooled? What were the know-it-all faculty and staff doing? Did they get played for fools too?
Lord Taluk is here to effect a takeover of our university by a faction of politicians and their friends in the judiciary and bureaucracy.
The student bodies and those commenting on websites like this have a habit of lumping together varied and diverse group of individuals just because they work at the same institution. It is only natural that not many step forward to fight the battles with them.
...
On a different note, you should probably add the name of Dr. Sarasu Thomas to the list under the third heading. She is probably the senior-most of all National Law School alum who went into academics.
Profile: www.nls.ac.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=96%3Adr-sarasu-esther-thomas&catid=8%3Afaculty&Itemid=58
SJA has mentioned in their email and petitions that they want the new VC to be in office by 1 January 2019. They should really push for this. If the university starts with a new set of people in critical leadership roles, such as the VC, Registrar, FO and AO that should give us some hope.
If Lord Taluk and his allies in the faculty or EC think that they can brazen this out, the SJA should prove them wrong. Students, that includes me as well, should stop being just Twitter, FB and LI comment warriors. We should take back our university from the clutches of Lord Taluk and his evil gang. Let's have our own #OccupyNUJS
twitter.com/SriramaAngirasa/status/1033251047635079170
twitter.com/SriramaAngirasa/status/1033251047635079170
twitter.com/jshkumar946/status/1033249598574346240
To be appointed as VC in India, the scholar must 10 years of experience as a professor in a university or 10 years' experience in an equivalent position in a reputed research or academic administrative organization.
FYI, Professor means "Professor" for atleast 10 years, not Assistant nor Associate. There is hierarchy in academic profession also. Which is based on experience and other factors. None of the aforementioned name meet the requirements.
And check Kay EL ESS. You got the hint
In this la-la land DEOs get paid at Rs 70,000 a month, PA is the VC, Registrar and security guards conduct moral policing and the guilty get away with impunity. Where is Lord Taluk with the inquiries? How long do we suffer his politics of deferral? I am sure as a Judge he developed a good knack for it but why import it in here?
By the way have you or anyone actually gone through the petitions that were addressed to the EC and Search Committee? You may fault the students for being utopian or not being grounded in reality but they have proposed some really cool ways to filter out the timeserving lot.
At least the students are debating, arguing, petitioning - they are doing something useful. What are you and your coven members doing? Witch hunting, moralsing and armchair punditry?
That is always rewarding. Ask Fiery Princeling or his [...] friend (aka [...]). Both had apprenticed under Ishwar (the one True God of NUJS) to gain mastery over the dark arts of flattery and double dealing and have been duly rewarded.
For more on [...] contact [...], Fiery Princeling, the [...] and [...]. For [...] negative reviews you know where to go. This rather particular gentleman is still sore that [...] had expressed shock over how the former was allowed to supervise doctoral candidates. [...] had recommended that [...] owing to quality and possibly plagiarism issues (which is an Alok Nath sized open secret) should be taken off from doctoral supervision. It is part of recorded history that despite [...] complaint against [...] both AC and EC unanimously chose not to take any cognisance of the matter.
[...] who among his many gems had also gifted dodgy scale and pay fixation to DEOs (actually his the [...] did it along with some others) by virtue of which they now draw Rs 70,000/month, is nursing ambitions to become Registrar, possibly even Acting VC. Although the FC directed that excess payments need to be calculated and recovered, [...] intervened. Now that [...] is on the run, [...] will exact vendetta.
Returning to [...], he has good connections with many present and retired judges of Calcutta HC. His elder bro was also a Judge of the High Court from the service cadre (Judicial Secretary subsequently elevated to the Bench). [...] was also sought to be installed as the head of the IIT KGP Law School. But he was thwarted and his mentor had him installed in [...] when Faizan moved to NLUO. The mentor also has deep links to AM, PIB and our Registrar.
How many faculty have subject matter experience in the field of expertise? NONE
How many faculty have practiced law for one day in their life? NONE
How many faculty know what they teach? NONE
unlike Rahul Singh of NLSIU who has worked in a top tier firm like Trilegal and is now a part-time partner in Khaitan, How many NUJS faculty have that kind of experience? NONE
Sadly the NUJS faculty are ignorant, inexperienced and bullshitting their way through each semester. Imagine a medical school where MBBS students are taught by teachers who have never done an operation before. Obviously these questions are ones the faculty will never take up.
First we will agitate asking VC to make each and every one faculty members to leave those who do not have at least 6-months minimum industry experience.
Next step is to correct faculty recruitment by asking VC to make every contractual faculty to leave since the need of the hour is permanent faculty.
Also VC and EC will be represented to ask every single permanent and temporary faculty member who does not have UGC criteria to leave.
Finally the step is to circulate potential NLU faculty to be recruited and apply to NUJS for faculty position. We will approach Mrinal Satish, Rahul Singh, Shinivas Rao, Karthik and others who can join NUJS by 2019 so that faculty recruitment be undertaken on an urgent and priority basis, independent and irrespective of the upcoming appointment of the VC. More power to SJA!
#Make NUJS Rank 1 by 2020
@Kian: Kindly do at least some basic fact-check before allowing such obviously misleading and blatantly false comments. I know you enjoy the bickering in the comments section, calling it 'good discussion' for whatever reason, but this is just deliberately allowing false propaganda on your part.
Good intentions in the suggestion but little sense of reality. That is how SJA lost 2016 to PIB and 2018 to Lord Taluk.
The Bar Library Club is not a homogenous body and its power is sort of overrated. Mr Jayanta Mitra (then AG) despite agreeing with the SJA could do very little but allow PIB second term. He was and still is a leading member of the Presidency University alumni group. And what has he and his merry group been doing? Twiddling their thumbs, cooling heels and being royally ignored. Don't believe me? Just Google the news and speak to the famed Presi folks who haven't acquired certain colours yet. Let's not attribute higher virtues to a cabal just because they are educated abroad or come from the landed gentry et al.
The actual problem with NUJS is its permanent faculty. Most want to create their own fiefdoms (especially the timeservers, including the so-called "alumni" lot). They know themselves well and suffer deep insecurities. Mythical stories often get belted out why they "chose" differently and stayed back to teach (unfortunately for us here). You know George Bernard Shaw was right ("those who can't, teach") when you have suffered them.
For another lot, some would say they sprouted most under Prof MP Singh, NUJS became a transit halt or probably always was. For some others they are the retinue that came and went with a VC (apparently this was the case with Prof NR Madhava Menon and partially with BS Chimni who had quite a few Menon holdovers).
If one were to go through alternate or renegade histories of NUJS (not entirely based on hearsay or anecdotes) the overall faculty culture - a shared legacy of all the VCs thus far - at our university can be summed up as "Fleece students, flee NUJS"
As for the admin folks, especially the DEOs why go elsewhere when one can comfortably do the first and with impunity. It is the combined toxic permanent flab of faculty and admin staff that is leeching our university. Look at how Lord Taluk got corrupted. Either that or Lord Taluk was always the agent sent out to secure political objectives for himself and his friends.
Exhibit 2: An interesting tweet, again just a few weeks before his selection.
Search Committee: "NKC is the next VC and AKP is the new Dean of Academics."
SJA: "What the..."
And there was no false impression. The admin did pull such a stunt, but the arrogance part is accurate enough and clearly visible. Even during alumni reunions, students keep asking for money and jobs and other support from the alumni, but when the alumni advise them to get their affairs and attitude in order, such advice falls on deaf ears.
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