The Odisha High Court has appointed Assistant Solicitor General Shaktidhar Das as Amicus Curie and asked him to file a report within two weeks about the present status of the Ravenshaw University in respect to its infrastructure and faculty positions.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice AK Goel and Justice AK Rath, while adjudicating a PIl on the matter filed by a former Ravenshaw College Students’ Union Chittaranjan Mohanty, decided to appoint the Amicus Curie to assist the court in deciding the petition. Mohanty has urged the court to direct the State Government in adhering to the guidelines and norms prescribed by the UGC and the AICTE in respect of appointment of faculties of the university.
The PIl has stated that although the erstwhile autonomous college was upgraded to a unitary university in 2006, the academic activities here are severely affected due to poor infrastructure and highly inadequate faculties. “As per the standard norms, the university should have more than 600 permanent faculties now to take care of the academic requirements of its over 8,000 UG and PG students with 1:13 teacher-student ratio. But unfortunately, the Government has sanctioned only 153 faculty positions and, for last seven years, the university is functioning with only less than 80 permanent faculties,” said petitioner advocate Khirod Rout, adding that the remaining sanctioned positions are not filled up due to cases pending in courts.
Rout further pointed out that all the ongoing self-financing courses of the university should now be converted into regular courses from the next academic year so that poor and talented students get an opportunity to pursue higher education in the university. In the name of self-financing courses, the private operators are fleecing the students without providing the requisite facilities for pursuing professional courses, the lawyer said.