Three organisations in NEHU have accused Vice Chancellor Prof. S K Srivastava of grossly misusing continuance in his office to amend an important statute of the central university that may extend his term of office.
In a statement issued today, the Meghalaya Tribal Teachers’ Association(MeTTA), NEHU Teachers’ Association (NEHUTA) and Meghalaya Confederation for Academic Welfare (MeCAW) said that such an act of amending a statute that concerns office of the term of the vice chancellor is a grave conflict of interest.
“As the process of selection of the new vice chancellor is on, such patently unstatutory, illegal and immoral act of proposing to amend the University’s statute 2(A) (2) that concerns with extension of the term of office of the incumbent vice chancellor under the specific direction of the Visitor maximum upto one year or until the new vice chancellor joins, whichever is earlier. The apparent intent behind proposing to amend the statute is to benefit himself of another extension, if an amendment is allowed to that effect by University’s academic council,” the three organisations said.
They also said a caretaker or term-extended vice chancellor cannot use any ‘statutory powers’ and this was also stated in letter from the erstwhile Ministry of Human Resources Development dated 7th August, 2014.
“In sheer abuse and misuse of his office, Prof. Srivastava intends to chair meetings of statutory councils and even go to the extent of changing statutes of the university,” the three organisations said.
“The poor excuse that Prof. Srivastava took while proposing amendment to the statute is to refer to some other universities and bring NEHU statute at par with other central universities,: they added.
