The Bihar Education Department appears to be at loggerheads with the Raj Bhavan again after it ordered the suspension of the salaries paid to two Vice-Chancellors (V-C) of State-run universities – S.P. Shahi, the V-C of Magadh University in Gaya; and Krishna Chandra Sinha, the V-C of Jai Prakash University in Saran district. Both varsities have failed to declare results on time. About 1.5 lakh students are affected by the delay in the declaration of results by one-and-a-half to up to six years.
Additional Chief Secretary of the Education Department, K.K. Pathak, directed the issuance of the order, which is also applicable to the Pro Vice-Chancellors, Registrars, Controllers of Examinations, Finance Officers, and Finance Consultants of both universities. The Secretary of the Education Department, Baidyanath Yadav, issued the notification on Mr. Pathak’s instruction.
The order was issued on Tuesday evening after the department conducted a review meeting, stressing that the payment of salaries to the concerned officials would remain postponed till pending results pertaining to delayed exams were declared.
The order issued to both V-Cs says students were facing many problems on account of the delay in the declaration of results. During the review meeting, it was found that Jai Prakash University plans to publish the results of the Under Graduate (UG) Part III (2020-2023) programme in January 2024, and the results of the Post Graduate (PG) Semester IV (2020-2022) programme in March 2024.
Similarly, Magadh University has planned to publish the UG Part III (2020-2023) results in January 2024, and PG Semester III (2019-2021) and Semester IV (2019-2021) in February 2024. The department has taken action as both universities have failed to follow schedules.
This is not the first time Mr. Pathak has issued such orders. Earlier, tension erupted between the Raj Bhavan and State government after Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar reversed an order issued by the Bihar Education Department to freeze the bank accounts of two officials at Muzaffarpur’s Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University.
Principal Secretary to the Governor, Robert L. Chongthu, had also sent a letter to the Vice-Chancellors of all the universities of Bihar to not follow any orders except those from the Governor and the Raj Bhavan. The letter stated that instructions sent to universities by anyone other than the Raj Bhavan or the Governor’s Secretariat were not compatible with the varsities’ autonomy.
Later, on September 5, 2023, the Governor had slammed the Education Department in the presence of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar during a Teacher’s Day programme in Patna, and demanded to know how things would run smoothly if the department adopted a confrontational stance. Without naming anyone, Mr. Arlekar had asked how a Secretary-level officer of the Education Department could write a letter challenging the rights of the Chancellor of State universities, that is, the Governor himself.
