VC Pandey orders ban on protesting bodies

Imphal: Days after the agitation at Manipur University was suspended following the intervention of the HRD ministry and the state government, Vice Chancellor AP Pandey, who is at the centre of the row, has issued a statement, banning two protesting bodies at the institute.
The vice chancellor, who was sent on leave on August 2, said in the statement Saturday that he has assumed charge and the HRD ministry, Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla and Chief Secretary J Suresh Babu have been intimated about the development. ‘The Manipur University Teachers Association (MUTA) and Manipur University Staff Association (MUSA) are hereby being been banned with immediate effect as the Manipur University Act 2005 does not have provisions for existence of employees’ bodies,” Pandey said. Academic activities resumed in the central university on August 24, a day after the Manipur University Students’ Union, along with MUTA and MUSA, called off their 85-day long agitation, demanding immediate removal of Pandey over administrative and financial irregularities. The protest was called off following the signing of a MoA with the representatives of HRD Ministry and the state government. The agitators, in a symbolic gesture, unlocked the doors of the administrative block office and other departments of the university.
Earlier, in July, the HRD ministry had formed a fact-finding committee, headed by a retired chief justice of Meghalaya, to probe into the allegations against the vice chancellor. Pandey, in his statement, said it was inevitable to curb the activities of both MUTA and MUSA to bring ‘order and discipline’ in the university. (PTI)