Governing Body Chiefs of 28 Delhi Govt-funded Colleges Reject Charge of Harassment of Principals

Governing body chairpersons of 28 colleges funded by the Delhi government wrote to Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh on Thursday and rejected as “frivolous and politically motivated” the allegation that two of them harassed principals. The Delhi University Principals’ Association (DUPA) has accused the chairmen of the governing bodies of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College and Swami Shradhanand College of harassing the principals by adopting “mischievous mechanisms”.

The association also made a representation to the DU Executive Council during its meeting last month, following which a five-member committee was former to look into the allegation of harassment. In their letter, the chairpersons of governing bodies of 28 colleges urged the vice-chancellor to declare the EC proceedings in this matter “infructuous”.

They have alleged the listing of the matter about the functioning of governing bodies in the Executive Council is an “encroachment of its autonomous jurisdiction and is not in consonance with the federal character of DU”. They said they “are very much pained to find that a representation of DUPA alleging harassment of some principals by some of us was taken up hurriedly, secretly and unilaterally.” They alleged that some principals show “open and brazen defiance to these rules and regulations about which we have been writing to your good office regularly”.

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“We respect the EC as the impartial statutory body, which should not be dragged to political squabbles. The DUPA representation makes frivolous, unsubstantive, unsubstantiated and politically motivated allegations,” the chairmen wrote. “In the light of the above mentioned fact, we request you to declare the EC proceedings around this agenda item infructuous and take necessary action on the communications sent by us on the college governance issues,” they added.

In a letter to Vice Chancellor Singh on August 14, DUPA highlighted the two cases and alleged that the governing bodies constituted illegitimate and unfair fact-finding committees against their principals. It is very unfortunate that in Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, the chairman of the governing body has unilaterally constituted a fact-finding committee to look into temporary adjustment by Professor Hem Chand Jain, Officiating Principal, by treating it as illegal transfer of funds, the letter stated.

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