Shillong, June 21: The NEHUTA is serving NEHU and its teaching community as per its constitution adopted under NEHU Statute 44(ii). The unacceptable act of interference by falsely terming NEHUTA election 2020-21 as unconstitutional, null and void by NEHU Vice-Chancellor is itself null and void, as he has no power to interfere suo motto in the functioning of an independent Association.
The NEHUTA alleged that the VC is citing statute 44 wrongly to create hindrance in the constitutional functioning of a legally set up Association with the agenda of silencing the watchdog body of Teachers so that his administrative, financial and other misdeeds are not brought to the notice of Authorities and the public .
It is worthwhile to mention that NEHUTA as the watch dog body has been raising various Statutory violations by incumbent VC, Prof. S.K. Srivastava. Misinterpretation and deliberate misrepresentation of NEHU statutes and NEHUTA Constitution is aimed at creating hindrances in the functioning of the watchdog body of NEHUTA as a likely strategy to get the second term as VC of this premier University in spite of abysmal inefficiency and failures to serve NEHU and get laurels for it.
Due to pandemic COVID19 w.e.f. third week of March 2020, there was imposition of complete lockdown and also curfew in Meghalaya with complete restriction of usual movement and closure of all the offices, markets and educational institutions etc. It was only during first week of May, 20 that the Meghalaya Govt. Offices and NEHU offices started opening partially.
During that time before the completion of the term, the NEHUTA EC 2019-20 as per Regulation 2(2i) of the constitution of NEHUTA recommended the composition and constitution of the election committee which was in fact based on the decision of the first General body meeting.
The composition of election committee was approved in GBM meeting conducted through online. Thus, the notification dated 29th may, 2020 is fully as per constitution of NEHUTA. The election was smoothly conducted as per constitution, result was declared and EHUTA EC 2020-21 took charge on 19-6-2020.
Thus, the unilateral declaration from the VC that the term of Executive Committee expired is baseless and the provision for the continuance of the incumbent Executive committee is provided in the very Clause-8 itself. That is why, to hide that fact the Vice-Chancellor has not given the full Clause-8.
“The term of office of the EC shall be one year. If at the end of the year a new EC could not be constituted because of any unavoidable situation, the incumbent EC shall continue to hold office in care-taker capacity till the next EC takes over. The matter shall, however, have to be subsequently reported to the General Body for approval.” As per Clause-8 the NEHUTA EC continued and the President and General Secretary had full constitutional powers to communicate with others.
Non-conduct of regular University Court meeting, Board of Research Studies (BRS) meeting were raised by NEHUTA. These two bodies, namely Court and BRS are extremely important without which they University cannot move. Even till date not a single BRS meeting has been conducted by him.
The conduct of University Court meeting is very important as the financial matters and Annual report of the University are discussed here, and only after its approval in the Court it is sent to the Parliament. However, the VC deliberately did not conduct any meeting during last 4 years of his tenure, only one meeting of the University Court was convened last year only after the repeated insistence by NEHUTA.
Thus, this implies that the VC has not only violated the Statutory provision but has misled the houses of the Parliament. Even prior to the Convocation, Court meeting is required and always it was being held. Because of this violation of Court’s oversight on convocation and for not meeting various demands of the teaching community, the NEHUTA gave a democratic call to boycott the unstatutory Convocation without creating any obstruction.
NEHUTA always wanted only to protect the image of NEHU by pointing to violation of Act, Statute and ordinances of the University by VC as an official of the University. The unstatutory demand for the list of members attending the NEHUTA general body meeting shows the malafide intention of the VC. With an ulterior motive, this was linked with release of annual grant of NEHUTA.
To utter surprise, the grant was not released for 2019-20 also. Repeated appeals of NEHUTA as a responsible citizens’ cum teachers’ Association to deposit grants accruing for 2018-19 and 2019-20 to PMCARES or to Meghalaya CM to help in fighting the COVID in the country was also refused without any justification.
The payment of Annual grant to the Association is as per the decision of the Authority of the University and its is also mandatory as per statutes, but the present VC does not follow any Authority or statutes, and has been behaving as if he is the Authority of NEHU.
In a university like NEHU, the authority does not lie in an individual officer like other government departments, but it lies in statutory bodies. His level of thinking and functioning can be guessed from the fact that during this VC’s time for the first time in the history of NEHU, he started objecting the community get-together cum celebration of Christmas and other festivals in NEHU.
In the cases of the appointments of Heads or Deans, he has been working on the principle of ‘pick and choose’ bypassing the rule of seniority. This has led to a lot of professional dissatisfaction and demoralization among academic community. Even the removal of two HODs is another example of dictatorial activity in which he removed the HODs for the time being, without asking for any explanation or enquiry.
NEHUTA alleged He (the Vice Chancellor) is attempting to justify such unstatutory action by wrongly quoting statute 2 (B) (2). Thus, the incumbent VC has been working in an autocratic manner and his activities and not the NEHUTA, during the last 4 and half years has brought down the image and academic standards of the University in an unprecedented manner..
NEHUTA emphasizes that the continuation of the Executive Committee after one year term under unavoidable situation of COVID-19 and conduct of election for the 2020-21 is perfectly correct as per its Constitution, and refutes the baseless accusations from NEHU. Further no NEHU official like the VC has been given any lawful right to interfere in the functioning of an independent Association, which is granted independence by law.
By making false allegations against the watchdog independent Association run following its Constitution, the VC is only exposing his malafide intent of covering up unstatutory administrative, financial and academic improprieties and infirmities at the fag end of his term. If there is any objection to NEHUTA’s internal working, it can only be from its general body and not from any officer of the University.
The NEHUTA seeks proper investigation into Prof. S.K.Srivastava’s action to harm the University and its stakeholders, said Prof X.P Mao President and Dr Marbhador M Khymdeit General Secretary in the Press statement.
