Shillong, July 30 (MExN): The North-Eastern Hill University Teachers' Association (NEHUTA) has submitted a memorandum to President of India seeking his intervention over the promotion under Career Advancement Scheme (CAS) issue in the university.
In the memorandum, the association accused the incumbent Vice Chancellor (VC) Prof SK Srivastava of playing “pick and choose game” with NEHU teachers eligible for promotion under CAS by “promoting some, while ignoring the rest.”
“The case in point is correction of wrong dates of eligibility for promoted professors, in which the VC only partially implemented ''One-Man Committee" led by Prof K Ismail's recommendation for correction of dates of eligibility “in case of some favourite teachers, while leaving rest in the lurch,” it said.
The committee’s recommended administrative date correction for teachers falling under UGC regulations, 2000, amounts to upturning the decision of the selection committee by the NEHU Executive Council, stated NEHUTA in the memorandum appended its President Prof XP. Mao and General Secretary, Dr Marbhador M Khymdeit.
Consequently, through an administrative order, correction of dates of promotion have been made for some teachers under UGC Regulations 2000. However, under UGC Regulations 2010, some teachers were called for re-assessment on July 31and August 1, 2017.
While the results of a few were cleared, the results of some teachers were never announced and the remainder teachers’ re-assessment was never done till date, the association alleged.
For the remainder of teachers covered under UGC regulations, 2010, the committee recommended reassessment and the VC conducted the same by convening selection committee.
At the end of the process, “for reasons best known to him,” the VC decided to refer to the cases of reassessed teachers to the UGC for its opinion, it said.
However, ‘it is understood that Prof SK Srivastava, did not bother to send the names of recommended candidates to the UGC’ and even does not bother to decide the date for reassessment, per the One man Committee recommendations, of the teachers left out of first round of reassessment, it added.
Consequently, the NEHUTA said that some teachers are promoted, but “on a wrong date and the procedure for correction of the date remains half-way incomplete and have been reportedly kept in abeyance for indefinite period” by the VC.
The VC neither chose to reply nor even give any reason for “keeping it arbitrarily unresolved,” the association alleged.
This, it said, has not only has denied promoted teachers entitlement in most cases except a few preferred ones, but he remained nonresponsive to appeals made by affected teachers, compelling them to write to the highest executive authority of NEHU, who is the Visitor, the President of India.
The NEHUTA also informed that it had written to the VC and Chairman, Executive Council of NEHU several times on the above matter but till date the association has not received any acknowledgement from his side. Even individual teachers have written to the VC many times but no reply or acknowledgement has been received from him, it said.
As a result, NEHUTA has completely exhausted all possible channels of communication and approaching the “last authority of our University, who is the Visitor to hear and listen empathetically and sympathetically to NEHUTA's appeal for justice,” the association stated in the memorandum to the President.
Earnestly requesting his intervention, the NEHUTA sought a direction from the President to the VC to “implement the long pending cases as early as possible so that justice reigns supreme and the rule of law is established in NEHU.”
The NEHUTA also has forwarded copies of the appeal to the Chief Rector of the University, the Governor of Meghalaya, UGC, MHRD etc and it is expected that some “response must follow in order to mitigate the grave injustice committed to the teachers of NEHU by the present Vice-Chancellor,” it added.
