After HC notice, governor to hear NU senate member

Nagpur: Maharashtra chancellor Ramesh Bais has invited senior senate member Manmohan Bajpai regarding his complaint against Nagpur University vice-chancellor Subhash Chaudhari for allegedly appointing an ‘ineligible person’ as an interdisciplinary sciences dean. Governor’s principal secretary Santosh Kumar has asked Bajpai to remain present on April 17 at Raj Bhavan in Mumbai at 2.15pm. Dean Prashant Kadu, Chaudhari and Shalini Sakharkar, who too had applied for the post and later lodged a complaint, will be present in the meeting. Bais would hear Bajpai and others personally as well as collectively before pronouncing his decision.

Bajpai had submitted three petitions with Bais’s predecessor Bhagat Singh Koshyari regarding his complaint against VC, on November 2, December 18 and December 20 last year. He even met Koshyari during his visit to the city and apprised him of the situation. After Koshyari took no cognizance for over three months, Bajpai approached the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court. It was only after HC’s notice of January 30 that the chancellor was forced to act on his complaints. Even before appointment of Kadu, principal of Abha Gaikwad-Patil College of Engineering, TOI had reported about Chaudhari’s intentions to appoint him at the behest of Shikshan Manch. According to Bajpai, three other deans were appointed in similar manner in 2021 ignoring merit. After TOI’s report, VC had deferred interviews for two days but held them “clandestinely” on December 8, which the complainant termed as mere formality to appoint Kadu.According to Bajpai, Kadu’s appointment was in complete violation of norms as he hails from the engineering fraternity and has no connection with the interdisciplinary sciences having arts and social sciences as subjects. Bajpai pointed out that Kadu possessed a Master of Engineering (ME) degree and had teaching experience in the mechanical branch, but never taught social sciences subjects.