The vice-chancellor had also violated Section 11 (14) and 89 of the Maharashtra Public Universities Act as he did not submit a report to the chancellor, stating his failure to announce results before the deadline.
MUMBAI: Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao removed Sanjay Deshmukh as the Vice-Chancellor of Mumbai University for gross negligence, for failing to implement the On-Screen Marking system and for not declaring results of examinations held in Summer-2017 within the time limit.
Governor Rao, chancellor of all state-aided universities, issued Deshmukh a memo on August 1, seeking an explanation for the disaster that the online screening of answer sheets turned out to be. He followed it by asking Deshmukh to go on leave on August 9 and the very next day gave additional charge of Mumbai University to Shivaji University’s vice-chancellor Dr Devanand Shinde.
AD Sawant, former pro V-C, who fought a long-drawn legal battle against Deshmukh’s predecessor Rajan Welukar, said, “In Maharashtra, vice-chancellors are being appointed based on their political affiliations, instead of their calibre.”
The search committee appointed by the government consists of a bureaucrat and a judge, as opposed to academicians as prescribed by University Grants Commission (UGC).
This year Mumbai University results were delayed by months as the university officials were grappling with the newly implemented digital assessment system.The delay has cost many students the opportunity to sit for the improvement examinations scheduled in this month.
The delay in declaring results has not only impacted the academic year of almost all courses that the university offers, but also put paid to students’ chances of applying to universities abroad.
The university’s academic year starts in July–Aug. It is October-end now and forget regular classes, some students haven’t yet received their results.
