Decks were cleared for the setting up of two more private universities in Uttar Pradesh as the Assembly approved nine Bills which included setting up of universities in Kanpur and Meerut. However, BJP members objected to the clause of the Bill concerning IIMT University in Meerut where a student cannot challenge any decision of the vice-chancellor in the court.
“The Bill infringes on the rights of the students and employees of the new university to protest against the VC or the Chancellor even if there were genuine grievances against them,” BJP member Radha Mohan Das Agarwal pointd out.
However, Parliamentary Affairs minister Mohd Azam Khan, who himself is the chancellor of the Maulana Jauhar Ali university in Rampur, said, “The VC and the Chancellor should be given power to run the university and the members should have faith on them.”
later, the Bill was passed without making any amendment. The Assembly also passed a Bill to set up Harcourt Butler Technical University in Kanpur. The BJP members also raised objections to the UP Secondary Education Service Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2016 which will regularize teachers working on an ad hoc basis before December 2000.
“This Bill will only give benefit to around 2000 teachers. The reservation policy will further bring down the figure,” Agarwal said. Most of the Bills were passed without any debate.
Congress faux pas :
Congress faced a humiliation in the UP Assembly when it supported other parties to adopt the UP loktrantrik Senani Samman Bill providing for permant pension and other benefits to politicians who were jailed under MISA during Emergency. Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey asked Congress leader Pradeep Mathur twice to on his support to the Bill. As he gave his approval by raising the hand, the Bill was passed unanimously. Few minutes later, Mathur realised his mistake. To rectify it, he first sent a chit to the Speaker conveying his opposition to the Bill and later told the Chair that Congress was not in support of the Bill.
The Speaker said that he will look into the matter even though the Bill has been passed. The Bill gives political pensioners a monthly pension of Rs 15,000 from next fiscal, a raise of Rs 3000, free bus travel and medical facilities.