The Raj Bhavan and Government of Bihar were at loggerheads after the Governor’s office sent a letter to the Vice-Chancellors of all the State universities to follow no orders except those issued by the Governor. In response to the Governor’s instructions, the Education Department sent out its own letter to the Raj Bhavan as well as the V-Cs concerned issuing a fresh set of instructions.
Principal Secretary to the Governor, Robert L. Chongthu, wrote the letter from the Governor’s office, dated August 30, which was made available on Friday. As a response, two letters were issued from the Education Department, dated August 31 and September 1 respectively. The first letter was addressed to Mr. Chongthu while the second included a fresh set of instructions to the V-Cs of the universities.
In the letter issued from Raj Bhavan, it was made clear that giving instructions to the university by anyone other than Raj Bhavan or the Governor’s Secretariat is not compatible with their autonomy.
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Mr. Chongthu’s letter asserted that “certain officials are attempting to create confusion illegally and recalcitrantly and are undermining the established autonomy of the university administration as well as the clearly laid down and unambiguous power and authority of the office of Chancellor in the matter of running the affairs of universities”.
Referring to the Raj Bhavan letter, Education Department Secretary Baidyanath Yadav responded, “I am directed to draw reference to your memo number 1393 dated August 30, 2023, where you have mentioned about the unambiguous powers of the Chancellor. In that matter, the Education Department would like to be enlightened about the ‘unambiguous powers’ and ‘authority’ of the Chancellor in the matter of running the affairs of the universities of Bihar under the prevailing Act and seeks to know the relevant section under which such powers are declared to be ‘unambiguous’. It would be of great help to us if specific provisions regarding these could be made available to us.”
Mr. Yadav further states, “You have also mentioned about certain individual officers undermining the ‘established autonomy’ of the University administration. We would like to know as to which officials have tried to do so and in what manner. The Education Department functions according to their prevailing Acts and Rules. You may be well aware of the fact that universities keep seeking guidelines from us and they frequently inform the Department about their problems and we try to extend support to them in whatever manner we are able to do.”
The developments followed after Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar, had in July, reversed an order of the Bihar Education Department to freeze the bank accounts of two officials at Muzaffarpur’s Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University.
The Education Department of Bihar had instructed the varsity to stop paying the salaries of the university Vice-Chancellor and pro-Vice-Chancellor for their alleged failure to inspect an institution in their jurisdiction and for not attending a review meeting held by it. Additionally, the Education Department announced that they are accepting applications for the positions of V-Cs at five universities in Bihar. However, a few days after the announcement, the department withdrew the notification.
This is not the first time that Raj Bhavan has issued such an order, as similar instructions were issued in 2009 to all Vice-Chancellors of Bihar by then Governor Devanand Konwar.
