The Hindu : Teachers stage demonstration

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 12, 2003

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Teachers stage demonstration

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI FEB. 11. Protesting against a code of conduct for meetings of Delhi University's Executive Council (EC) and Academic Council (AC) recommended by a committee appointed by the Vice-Chancellor, Deepak Nayyar, activists of Academics for Action and Development (AAD) and some members of the AC and EC today held a demonstration outside the venue of the EC meeting.

The AAD activists, along with AC members P. Kakra, S.C. Panda, Sadhna Sharma, Dinesh Adlakha and C.K. Jaggi, and EC members Vijaya Laxmi Singh and Shiv Shankar Gupta, sat on dharna outside the venue of the EC meeting at which the code of conduct committee's recommendations were submitted.

The protesters described the recommendations as `draconian' and accused the Vice-Chancellor of usurping their democratic rights and of wanting to "assume dictatorial powers''. They also accused him of "frequent violations of the provisions of the Delhi University Act, Statutes and Ordinances'', such as inviting experts on selection committees for appointments of teachers from outside the panel approved by the AC.

The AAD said the rules of conduct for EC meetings apply to all AC meetings as well. The recommendations include disallowing EC members from sitting on dharna and from questioning or commenting on the ruling of the Chairman (the Vice-Chancellor). It has also proposed to limit zero hour to one hour and to "questions or issues of an emergent nature''.

The AC members argue that this will not provide sufficient time to discuss pressing issues. They allege that despite their demanding regular meetings of the AC and EC as per the rules, today's meeting was held after a gap of 10 months. "A code of conduct is needed for the Vice-Chancellor, not for the AC,'' said the AAD chairman, S.S. Rathi, stressing that the code of conduct was formulated by nominated members, and the elected members of the AC and EC were not consulted.

The prescribed punishment for violating the code of conduct goes up to suspension by the Vice-Chancellor from membership of the meetings.

The AAD activists also protested against the functioning of the Kalindi College Governing Body, which has denied re-employment to four teachers of the college on "extra-academic considerations''. After superannuation, teachers may be re-employed up to three years, the AAD said.

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