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A Press Conference was held by the DUTA on 9.9.2014 to highlight on the vicious manner in which the University is trying to hit back at the Teachers’ Movement by orchestrating complaints against the DUTA President Nandita Narain through some of the Principals and Chairpersons close to the Vice Chancellor, and thereby laying the ground for use of the draconian Code of Conduct.
The Press Conference was addressed by the Secretary, Dr. Harish Khanna, and Joint Secretary, Ms. Anita Ghosh, of the DUTA, members of the DUTA Executive and other activists, including the Spokesperson of the SOL Teachers Association. Mr. J Khuntia.
The speakers condemned the manner in which the DU Vice Chancellor, smarting after the rollback of FYUP, the bringing out of the White Paper and the repatriation of the Registrar, was seeking to wreak vengeance on teachers by
first seeking to terminate services of ad-hoc teachers on a large scale, then attacking the promotions and pensions of teachers, and now the DUTA itself by the implied threat to use the draconian Code of Conduct against the DUTA President on patently false complaints engineered by his agents.
In the past couple of weeks, Principal of Kalindi College, Dr. Anula Maurya, and Governing Body Chairman of the School of Open learning, Prof. C S Dubey, have both written to the St. Stephen’s College Principal, demanding action against the DUTA President alleging misconduct against her (Letter from Principal, Kalindi College / Letter from GB Chairman SOL). In both instances, Ms. Narain, in her capacity as DUTA President, had visited Kalindi College and School of Open Learning with elected teachers’ representatives to make democratic appeals, on behalf of the teachers, to the authorities. This is a regular practice and the DUTA President has been frequently visiting colleges with her team of teachers’ representatives to have dialogue with the authorities.
However, baseless allegations of misconduct have been flung against her by these two people who are considered very close to the DU Vice Chancellor. Ms Anita Ghosh, who was present as part of the DUTA team at Kalindi College during the incident said that in fact, it was the DUTA team that was maltreated by a group of ad-hoc teachers and bouncers at the behest of the Principal.
Mr Khuntia, who was present along with teachers of SOL when the DUTA President accompanied them to make an appeal to the Governing Body members before the start of the meeting, also refuted all the charges leveled by Prof C S Dubey. In this regard, a representation by the Teachers of SOL has been submitted to the Principal of St.Stephen’s College.
The behavior of the St. Stephen’s College Principal Rev. Valson Thampu also came in for much criticism. Already having exhibited his bias against Nandita Narain by lodging a false enquiry against her for alleged “defamation”, he promptly seized the opportunity to advise Dr. Maurya to lodge FIRs against the DUTA President and ask the Vice Chancellor to initiate disciplinary action against her, based on the draconian Code of Conduct. Rev. Thampu sent his replies to the Kalindi College Principal without even enquiring about the authenticity of their allegations or asking the DUTA President Ms. Narain for her version (Letter to Principal, Kalindi College). He has also filed the letters and his own reply in Ms. Nandita Narain’s personal service file (Letter to Nandita Narain / Replies from Nandita Narain: Re: Letter from Principal, Kalindi College / Re: Letter from GB Chairman SOL)
Mr Sanjaya Bohidar described the special position occupied by Prof Dubey in the University administration, as a member of the Vice Chancellor’s team, Chairperson of the Sports Council and Dean of Science well beyond his tenure. He has come in for special mention in DUTA’s White paper for having allocated Rs 100 crore to the VC from SOL funds and other financially questionable decisions. He pointed out that the vicious and vindictive targeting of the DUTA President is in fact aimed at silencing every teacher.
Mr. Saikat Ghosh highlighted the severely problematic clauses in the Code of professional Ethics, which has been into an actionable Code of Conduct by the VC, with the power to take direct action against any employee. The DUTA has been opposing the imposition of this Code of Conduct because it denies teachers the liberty to openly disagree with or criticise the authorities on any matter. The clauses of the code of conduct are amenable to subjective, selective and arbitrary interpretation and have been adopted to provide the VC unjustifiable sweeping powers to target every teacher who expresses views critical of his proposals and actions.
DUTA Secretary, Dr.Harish Khanna and DUTA President Nandita Narain re-iterated the firm resolve of the DUTA to give a fitting reply to the VC by organizing a massive demonstration at the MHRD on 17th September to demand the immediate removal of the VC and the setting up of a Visitorial Enquiry into all charges against him including those leveled in the White Paper.
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