Supreme Court issues notice on plea alleging inaction by West Bengal Governor in granting assent to universities bill

The Supreme Court has sought a response from West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose's office on a plea alleging inaction in approving the West Bengal Universities (Amendment) Bill 2022, which replaced the governor with the chief minister as chancellor of state universities. The Calcutta High Court had initially ordered the governor's office to file affidavits but later stayed its own order. The plea argues that despite the bill's passage in 2022, the governor continued appointing vice-chancellors, which is now being challenged.

The Supreme Court on Monday sought the response from the office of West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose on a plea alleging inaction in giving assent to the West Bengal Universities (Amendment) Bill 2022, which was passed by the state legislature in June 2022.

The West Bengal Assembly in 2022 had passed a bill to replace the governor with the chief minister as the chancellor of all the state-run universities.

A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice J B Pardiwala issued notice to the principal secretary to the governor and the Union of India, seeking reply within four weeks.

''Issue notice, liberty to serve the central agency,'' the bench said.

The top court was hearing an appeal filed by one Sayan Mukherjee against an order of the Calcutta High Court which stayed its own earlier directions seeking response from the governor on the issue and said it would examine the maintainability of the petition.

Initially, on September 12 last year, the high court had sought affidavits from the office of the West Bengal governor on the PIL challenging his alleged inaction.

The plea filed in the high court had submitted that even though the West Bengal Universities (Amendment) Bill 2022 was pending consideration since 2022, the governor kept on making appointments of vice-chancellors (VCs) in his capacity as the chancellor of the state universities.

The Centre, however, submitted before the high court that under Articles 212 and 361 of the Constitution, the governor is immune from answering the subject issue and the PIL was politically motivated and not genuine.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)