SHILLONG: The North-Eastern Hill University Teachers’ Association (NEHUTA) has thrown brickbats at Vice-Chancellor SK Srivastava for not contributing to the PM CARES Fund.
Appealing to Srivastava to deposit to PM CARES the pending annual grant NEHUTA amounting to 3 lakhs, the Association said in a statement said, “It is regrettable that the vice-chancellor, despite our repeated writings, to stand by NEHUTA and the nation by at least depositing available grant money, has not yet informed us of any positive action from his side towards the humanitarian cause of COVID-19”.
The NEHUTA alleged that amid the lockdown, the “vice-chancellor took umbrage at expiry of the terms of office of the elected teachers’ body to arbitrarily rescind NEHUTA’s statutory right to communicate with him on behalf of teachers.”
“Such an arbitrary behavior establishes mala fide and illegal act of the vice-chancellor to gag the watchdog teachers’ association formed under act of parliament so that teachers cannot raise voice against his whimsical, arbitrary and anti-academic activities carried out with impunity, almost on a daily basis,” the statement from the Association said.
NEHUTA further accused vice-chancellor of stating that the present elected body of NEHUTA crossed its term.
“By crossing limits drawn by democratic and legal procedures, the vice-chancellor in the most blatant display of non-statutory abusive power intended to interfere in the functioning of the teachers’ association and brazenly attempted to prevent it from discharging its constitutional duty,” the NEHUTA said.
“In the same breath, he had illegally attempted to remove NEHUTA from its ways of functioning and denied funds to national PM CARES, despite several requests,” it added.
The NEHUTA has demanded an enquiry into all the administrative, financial and academic acts “that has damaged the university beyond repair”.