The Supreme Court on Monday set aside the appointments of vice-chancellors and pro-vice-chancellors to almost all universities in Bihar after it concluded that the then Bihar Governor failed to hold effective consultation with the State Government.
The bench of Justices GS Singhvi and V Gopala Gowda set a three-month deadline for the State to put in place the new VCs and Pro-VCs after constituting a Search Committee as per the UGC Guidelines.
The appointments were of August 2011 involving the vice-chancellors of Patna University (Patna), Bhim Rao Ambedkar University (Madhepura), Jai Prakash University (Chhapra), Bhupendra Narain Mandal Univeristy (Madhepura), Kameshwar Singh Darbhanga Sanskrit University (Darbhanga) and Maulana Mazharul Haque Arabic and Persian University (Patna). The Pro-VCs affected by the apex court order were of Patna University, Bhupendra Narain Mandal University, lalit Narain Mithila University, and Maulana Mazharul Haque Arabic and Persian University.
The appointments were carried out by the then Governor of Bihar Devanand Konwar, currently the Governor of Tripura, under Notifications issued on August 1, 2011 and August 3, 2011. The appointments were initially challenged before the Patna HC which had struck them down on the same ground. The challenge was two-fold.
The petitioner Ram Tawakya Singh and others alleged that the above appointments were made in contravention of Sections 10(2) and 12 of the Bihar Universities Act, 1976 and Sections 11 & 14 of the Patna University Act, 1976 which referred to “consultation” with State Government. The petitioners also argued that the persons appointed to these posts were not fit for appointment in terms of academic qualifications and pending cases against some of the appointees.
The HC had concluded, “At no point of time before the Chancellor discussed the matter with the CM, the names proposed by the Chancellor were disclosed to the State Government. In absence of the disclosure of the names, the State Govt could not have applied its mind or formed an opinion.”
The bench held that a mere discussion did not constitute consultation. For the above reasons, it held the ten appointments to be “vitiated” and “void ab initio” (defective from the beginning).