SHILLONG, March 16: The NEHUTA, NEHUSU, and NEHUNSA have urged acting Vice Chancellor Nirmalendu Saha to withhold or stop the salary of VC Prabha Shankar Shukla, the Registrar and the Deputy Registrar from March.
At the same time, the university’s three statutory bodies threatened to take earned leave (EL) for two days if the salaries of the trio were not withheld or stopped. They said they would use the leave to go to Delhi for some work, perform their duties online and return to the campus according to their wishes.
“We will request all NEHUTA and NEHUNSA members to take EL for a few days, go anywhere they want and join virtually under some lame excuse without coming to the station and enjoy the salary indefinitely,” the three bodies said in the letter addressed to Prof. Saha on March 13.
Stating if the acting VC can relax the central rules for the VC, Registrar, and Deputy Registrar, all the faculty members and non-teaching staff should get the facility too.
“You cannot afford to violate our fundamental right, specifically the right to equality as guaranteed under Articles 14, 15, and 16 of the Constitution of India,” the three bodies said.
They said there should be no file movements including soft copies to the VC who is on leave and no unauthorised orders from him should be entertained by any NEHU official – on the Shillong and Tura campuses.
“All official correspondence must be routed through the office of the Registrar in charge only,” the three bodies stated.
They pointed out that the VC went on EL following the advice of the Director of Higher Education, Government of India from November 15, 2024, which was extended till March 2. He has not joined or reported to the NEHU headquarters in Shillong since.
The associations said this amounts to continuous absence from duty at the university for 130 days.
They further stated Prof Shukla exhausted all the leave he earned in NEHU during his tenure before he “absconded” from the campus on November 1, 2024.
“In such a situation, various rules, provisions, inter alia, under the CCS (Leave) Rules, 1972, for taking immediate and appropriate action against government servants staying away from duty without prior sanction of leave or overstaying the periods of sanctioned leave as stipulated by the Ministry of Personnel, Government of India must be invoked,” the associations wrote.
They said the ministry concerned has reiterated that such absence is unauthorised and warrants prompt and stringent action according to the rules.
The associations requested the acting VC to invoke the various provisions under CCS (Leave) Rules. They said the rules stipulate that an officer absent from duty without any authority shall not be entitled to any pay and allowances during the period of such absence.
“Additionally, under the same rule, we request you to initiate disciplinary action immediately against Prof. Shukla under CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965. Similar actions under the same rule should be done for Registrar Omkar Singh and Deputy Registrar Amit Gupta who are also on unauthorised leave and have not joined/reported to the NEHU headquarters in Shillong for 130 days at a stretch,” they said.
They said Singh and Gupta, too, exhausted the leave they earned during their service.
“You are performing the duties of the Vice Chancellor as per Statute 2(A)S(i)) under the NEHU Act, being the senior-most professor, in the absence of the Vice Chancellor,” the three bodies stated.
At the same time, they demanded that NEHU should not allow the misuse of its guesthouses in Shillong, Tura, and Guwahati by the VC on leave.
“He (Prof Shukla) must be charged the normal rate which he should pay from his personal money and not misuse NEHU’s limited fund and all his travel expenses must be borne by him personally,” they added.
The NEHU statutory bodies further requested the NEHU administration to strictly adhere to the NEHU Act, the statutes, ordinances, and regulations and the Government of India rules to avoid anarchy on the university’s Shillong and Tura campuses.
