(on the EC meeting of 3 November, 2012)
Delhi University has not become an institution of repute and academic excellence without the sustained contributions made by its teachers to the teaching-learning processes. The DUTA is very clear that the VC is desperately keen to divert attention from the burning issues in the University today and his own record of mismanagement by suppressing the teachers’ movement through such stage-managed executive decisions. DUTA has never been averse to teachers’ accountability and responsibility in ensuring that classes are engaged regularly. It had prepared and submitted a comprehensive document on accountability of teachers to the University in 2003. In December 2009, the Executive Council of the University had appreciated this effort of the DUTA and had authorized the V-C’s office to set up a Committee to finalize a mechanism for ensuring regular presence of teachers in classrooms, in the light of the 2003 DUTA document on Accountability. No steps have been taken in this direction, despite repeated reminders by DUTA, since then. Instead of taking the V-C to task for not following this standing decision, the EC abandoned its collective priviledge to deliberate on and take decisions even as the Vice-Chancellor was successfully able to turn this situation to his own advantage.
The DUTA has come to know that the V-C is also guilty of misrepresenting the University’s position on teachers’ attendance and accountability to the Delhi High Court in his reply-affidavit to the recent PIL through which bio-metric attendance of teachers had been demanded. The V-C’s affidavit had not referred to the Executive Council’s decision of 23rd December 2009 in which the task of setting up the Committee which would be required to work with reference to the DUTA document had been delegated to his office. Hence, his intention to usurp all executive decision-making powers has been accomplished through deliberate obfuscation of facts and active misleading of judicial and statutory authority. The DUTA will expose this scandal at the highest levels of State and Executive and will not rest till the teachers of the University are assured of justice in the matter, as well as the normal priviledges of the EC and AC are restored.
The DUTA also condemns the V-C’s shameless attempt to scuttle serious deliberations on the issue of appointments by spreading canards and slander against University and college teachers and instead, suggesting a downsizing of the number of vacancies. The V-C’s unconstitutional refusal to implement SC/ST and OBC Reservations at all entry-levels, as required by the 2006 UGC Guidelines on Reservations, is also highly objectionable and robs the University of its credibility and record in Social Justice. The DUTA appeals to the entire teaching community of Delhi University to go on a warpath against a V-C who has transgressed the scope and limits of his functioning as have been defined in the University Statutes and Ordinances, in order to politicise his own office and perpetuate his absolute control over all constituents of the University.
S.D. Siddiqui, Secretary Amar Deo Sharma, President
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