Bengal assembly approves bill to replace guv with CM as chancellor
HT Correspondent
KOLKATA: The West Bengal assembly on Monday passed the West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which seeks to make chief minister Mamata Banerjee chancellor of all 31 state-aided universities and institutes of science and technology.
Among these, governor Jagdeep Dhankhar is chancellor of 17 institutions, such as Calcutta University, according to British-era norms. The position is not assigned by the Constitution of India. The draft legislation was passed with 182 Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislators voting in favour and 40 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members opposing it.
Education is a subject in the concurrent list of the Constitution, meaning the Centre has equal say on issues related to it.
The Bill referred to the report of the Punchhi Commission set up by the Centre under the chairmanship of justice Madan Mohan Punchhi, former Chief Justice of India, in April 2007 to look into changing scenarios and new issues relating to Centre-state relations after the subject was reviewed by the Sarkaria Commission formed in 1983.
“Making the governor the chancellor of the universities and thereby conferring powers on him which may have had some relevance historically has ceased to be so with the change of the circumstances. The Commission is also of the view that governor should not be assigned functions casually under any Statues. His role should be confined to the Constitutional provisions only,” the Bill said.
The state government’s decision is set to further heighten tensions between the state government and Raj Bhawan.
“A government wants universities to run smoothly, and there is no harm in changing old rules,” education minister Bratya Basu told the House.
The Bengal assembly is the first one in the country to pass such a Bill, although it cannot become law without the governor’s assent. TMC ministers have said they may move ordinances if Dhankhar does not clear the bill despite the fact that ordinances, too, need to be cleared by the governor.
Dhankhar has already made it clear that the government will not be able to pass the law easily.
A number of BJP legislators opposed the Bill on Monday.
BJP’S Agnimitra Paul said: “The TMC government wants to control each and every institution. The Bill has been placed to ensure political control over educational institutions, more so because Mamata Banerjee has failed to answer crucial questions raised by the governor.”
The Bill says that the chief minister will not only be the chancellor of state-aided universities, but will also preside over their respective senates and courts.