MSU move to install RSS men in VC panel stayed

The Times of India
April 5, 2001

VADODARA: Joint civil judge VK Pujara has issued an interim stay order directing the MS University authorities to restrain from nominating members for the search committee for appointment of the new vice-chancellor for the university.

The stay order follows a case filed by Narendra Tiwari, an MSU senate member, who said in his petition that efforts are being made to saffronise the university by nominating members who are pro-RSS and BJP.

The judge has issued the stay order till April 23 and has asked the university not to initiate further steps for appointment of the search committee.

Tiwari, who is also the Baroda Bar Association president, said that several anomalies were found in the procedure to select the search committee members. These clearly indicate the malafide intentions of the MSU authorities to install members in the committee who are pro-RSS.

As per the MSU rules, the search committee has to be appointed five months before September 6, 2001 when the term of current VC Anil Kane ends.

Tiwari presented before the court examples of illegal means that were resorted to select Madan Gopal Gupta, a pro-RSS man. In his petition, he mentioned that MSU vice-chancellor has illegally appointed members without taking into account the MSU rules. "As per rules, the three-member search committee has to be appointed in three phases, first by the syndicate, ten days later by the board of vice chancellors and ten days after this by the existing VC.

Despite this rule, several anomalies have been found since March 27 when a circular was issued (without the signature of the registrar) to call a meeting on April 2 which was a public holiday.

In the March 27 syndicate meeting, the vice-chancellor delayed hearing of item 25 wherein a name had to be selected for the search committee and later adjourned the meeting to April 2, a public holiday.

On April 2, three government-nominated senate members, who are normally not present in syndicate meetings, were called specially. The meeting was announced as a special one. However, no agenda was sent to the senate members.

Despite dissents from other syndicate members like Narendra Shukla, Cassim Unia, II Pandya, LM Joshi and Deshpande, the name of Madan Gopal Gupta was selected by a majority vote, said Tiwari.

Despite given names of illustrious personalities such as IG Patel, Amrita Patel, Kantak and Manu Shroff, Madan Gopal Gupta, former head of the department of Hindi, was selected. Gupta has faced several corruption charges in the past and an inquiry committee was also set up against him. Despite this record, his name was selected, said Tiwari in his petition.