Letter to MP Sitaram Yechury

25 November 2014

We would like to express our gratitude to you for taking up the issue of the functioning of Delhi University and the DUTA’s demand for a Visitorial enquiry against the Vice-Chancellor and his removal with the Hon’ble President and Visitor of the University. Many of the issues that threaten the academic and administrative functioning of the University have been detailed in the White Paper. We wish to summarise some of them to emphasise that little has changed even after the rollback of the FYUP. In fact, the VC has taken vengeful and vindictive decisions against teachers and students. His removal is essential for restoring normalcy and reviving academic functioning in Delhi University. 

The crisis in Delhi University has reached unprecedented proportions under this Vice-Chancellor who has subverted the Ordinances, Statutes and Act of the University with total impunity leading to academic and administrative collapse. Ordinances and Statutes have been amended without due process to introduce dubious and ill-conceived courses like the FYUP and for furthering his personal interests, like the grant of second term for the Vice-Chancellor and extension of retirement age for his team members in meetings chaired by him with scant regard for propriety and probity in public life. Statutory bodies have been reduced to rubber stamps by the gross misuse of emergency powers leading to an environment where sycophancy rules and those refusing to toe the line face harassment and victimization in myriad ways. The Code of Professional Ethics imposed on teachers to curb dissent is one such example. It seeks to institutionalise an arbitrary, undemocratic and anti-academic mechanism which threatens the very idea of a university.

Appointments have been held up for more than four years so that around 5000 teaching posts (50% of the total posts) and and a similar number of non-teaching posts are lying vacant, with ad hoc and guest teachers and contract staff working against them. The DoPT/UGC guidelines for implementing the Reservation roster are being flagrantly violated despite repeated letters from the MHRD and UGC. The roster being used enables easy manipulations and reserved posts are being arbitrarily shifted on the roster to suit the whims and fancies of the authorities. Appointments recently begun in this context under pressure from the MHRD/UGC therefore threaten to undo the entitlement to reservation enshrined in the Constitution. The Vice-Chancellor has also appropriated all powers to influence appointments through the composition of Selection Committees and the bypassing of Statutes to disallow any scrutiny of appointments by the Executive Council. 

As reported in the press, the Vice-Chancellor has already been found guilty of gross financial misappropriation of over 100 cores by the Satyam Committee set up by the UGC. Use of public funds for self-promotion (Antardhwani, Gyanodaya Express and unauthorised diversion of OBC funds for purchase of laptops), while denying colleges additional teaching posts required in view of 54% expansion in intake of students following OBC reservation, has been the hallmark of his regime. Charges of plagiarism against the VC in the Thomson Reuter case as well as in the designing of courses for the illegally established Cluster Innovation Centre have not been investigated so far. 

The University as a space for dialogue and discussion has been completely undermined as space is routinely denied to teachers and students. The VC continues to refuse all dialogue with the DUTA and the elected bodies of the students and non-teaching staff, the DUSU and the DUCKU. This is unprecedented in the history of this University. With the complete cessation of dialogue, frustrations amongst students, teachers and karmacharis about mounting and unresolved grievances have grown. No issue is being resolved and new issues are piling up. Even retired teachers have not been spared as the VC has arbitrarily pushed through a decision to withhold the pensions of many of them.

With all this and much more, the academic environment in Delhi University has been destroyed. We wish to express our deep distress that no action has been taken so far against the person responsible for this terrible assault on the University. The University community was shocked when the previous government rewarded him for his misdeeds with a Padma Shri. We were hopeful of action after the rollback of FYUP. Yet nothing seems to be happening despite innumerable representations and protests. We cannot comprehend why a Visitorial enquiry has not been initiated even after the submission of the comprehensive White Paper and the subsequent report of the Satyam Committee. We therefore appeal to you to pursue the matter with all concerned so that the VC is removed at the earliest. Since the situation in the University is deteriorating with every passing day, we would be grateful for your urgent intervention. 

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