Retired Vice Chancellor of Bengal University opposed the Calcutta University’s (CU) decision of honoring Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with a D’Litt. The degree was to be conferred on Bengal CM tomorrow in the convocation ceremony of the reputed university. The retired VC from other university moved High Court regarding this decision. He filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in which it was argued that the university which had honored Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray with the doctorate are making a decision against the public interest by conferring it to the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The argument continued in the court for more than 4 hours and it is set to be heard again tomorrow at 10:30 am. Meanwhile, the convocation is at 1 pm tomorrow so it is highly unlikely that any decisions could be made before that. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee could never have imagined that the D’Litt degree would cause such high drama and will lead to debates among students in the campus. Students were split into two factions with one supporting that she should get the degree and others were not happy with this. Sutanuka, a student said that Mamata Banerjee should get the doctorate degree as she had worked hard to get Bengal into the road of prosperity and she is not only a representative of a political party. Another student Ipsa said that she was not happy with Mamata getting the degree as it seems that she was getting the degree only due to her political influence and it is not right.
In the court, it was argued that the PIL was filed to gain political mileage and for publicity. In the presence of Acting Chief Justice, it was argued that the recipient of the honorary doctorate was chosen by the university’s official authorized body. The lawyers of Ranju Gopal Mukerjee who had filed the PIL said that the there was no clarity in the choosing of recipient’s and that the process was not transparent. There was certain political influence used to acquire the degree for Chief Minister.
A lawyer and former Congress legislator explained the whole situation that earlier the recipients were chosen by the elected member of Senate but it was not the case nowadays. Arunabha Mukherjee further explained that the syndicate is composed of people who are all appointed by the state government, so naturally, they recommend their head, the chief minister.
According to Bengal BJP Chief, Dilip Ghosh the education level and status of the university is not functioning well. He said that the university is not functioning well, studies are being disrupted, VCs don’t last and asked what have CM done for education that she was given this honorary doctorate.
