West Bengal Vice-Chancellor appointments: Supreme Court appoints former CJI UU Lalit to head search committee

The Supreme Court on Monday appointed former Chief Justice of India Uday Umesh Lalit to head a committee to oversee the appointments of Vice-Chancellors for public universities in West Bengal..A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and KV Viswanathan passed the order and posted the matter for further hearing after four weeks..The West Bengal government and Governor CV Ananda Bose have been locked in dispute over who gets the final say and supervision role over such appointments..The top court constituted a committee headed by Justice Lalit as Chairperson, and including members from the lists provided by the parties and additional experts from various educational fields for a comprehensive perspective on the issue.Justice Lalit will form sub-committees for different universities based on their subjects. The State will bear the expenses for the same, the Bench directed.The top court further directed:"The Chief Minister, not the concerned minister, will prioritise the names and forward them to the Chancellor. If the CM does not approve any name, reasons and supporting material must be provided. The Chancellor will appoint the VC based on the CM’s recommendations and must provide reasons and materials if any name is rejectedAll objections from the Chief Minister and Chancellor will be presented directly to the Supreme Court. Justice Lalit will be paid ₹3 lakh per effective committee meeting, with others compensated as per governing statutes. If no allowances and perks are provided for committee members, the State must inform the Supreme Court on the next date.".The Supreme Court had in December last year urged Attorney General (AG) for India R Venkataramani to utilise his diplomatic skills to facilitate the appointment of Vice-Chancellors in numerous State-run universities of West Bengal.The request was made amidst the contentious dispute between the Mamata Banerjee-led government and Governor Bose regarding the governance of the State's universities.The top court had observed the same while reviewing an appeal filed by the West Bengal government challenging a Calcutta High Court order which had determined that there was no wrongdoing in the directives issued by the West Bengal Governor appointing interim Vice-Chancellors (VCs) in 11 universities..Senior Counsel Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Jaideep Gupta with Advocate Ashta Sharma appeared for the State of West Bengal..[Read judgment]