The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a Calcutta High Court ruling setting aside the Mamata Banerjee-led government’s decision to reappoint Sonali Chakravarthi Banerjee as Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University despite the Governor, who is also the Chancellor of the university, not agreeing to the proposal.
After the Governor didn’t clear the proposal to give Chakravarti, whose first term ended on August 27, 2021, another four-year term, the Trinamool Congress government had invoked Section 60 of the Calcutta University Act-1979, to implement its decision.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Hima Kohli while dismissing the West Bengal government’s appeal against the September 13, 2022, HC order slammed the state for “misusing” the provision, which, it said, only contemplates a situation where inter alia any difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions of the Act “on account of any lacunae or omission” in its provisions or for any other reason whatsoever.
“The state government chose the incorrect path under Section 60 by misusing the ‘removal of difficulty clause’ to usurp the power of the Chancellor to make the appointment. A government cannot misuse the removal of difficulty clause to remove all obstacles in its path which arise due to statutory restrictions. Allowing such actions would be antithetical to the rule of law. Misusing the limited power granted to make minor adaptations and peripheral adjustments in a statute for making its implementation effective, to side-step the provisions of the statute altogether would defeat the purpose of the legislation,” the Bench said.
Subscriber Only Stories
The Bench pointed out that in the instant case, there was a specific provision in the Act in the form of Section 8(2)(a) which gives the power of appointment and reappointment to the Chancellor and not the state government and that an amendment made to the Act in 2019 does not alter it.
“The power of appointment, including of reappointment, is entrusted to the Chancellor and not to the state government. The amended provisions of Section 8(2)(a) cannot therefore be construed to mean that the power of reappointment has been taken away from the Chancellor and entrusted to the state government. Reading the provisions in such a manner would make the provisions entrusting the power of appointment of the V-C with the Chancellor redundant,” the SC ruling said.
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/kolkata/sc-upholds-hc-sets-aside-re-appointment-calcutta-university-vc-8201919/
