Communist Party of India (Marxist) Rajya Sabha member Sitaram Yechury has sought President Pranab Mukherjee’s intervention in the matter of DU’s decision to implement four-year undergraduate programme.
Mr. Yechury met the President — who is the Visitor of all central universities — on Thursday and drew his attention to the “chaos and academic disaster” staring Delhi University in the face if the four-year programme is implemented from July 2013.
“The Vice-Chancellor may claim that all statutory bodies have or are in the process of giving their approval, but hurried decisions without application of mind and without addressing legitimate concerns cannot be considered wise decisions,” Mr. Yechury said in a note submitted to the President.
The President, in his response, reportedly said that the Prime Minister had spoken to him, and is learnt to haveexpressed his concern at the haste with which the programme was being implemented.
Pointing out that the President had the authority to intervene and stop the University from going ahead with the move, the note lists the provisions of the Delhi University Act under which the Visitor can intervene. Mr. Yechury urged Mr. Mukherjee to do so and halt the programme’s implementation before ordering an inspection/inquiry.
Such inspection/inquiry, the note emphasised, should not only include in its ambit the infrastructural preparedness for adding an extra year and the preparedness in terms of teachers, but also look into the vitiated atmosphere created by the Vice-Chancellor within which teachers, including senior faculty members, and statutory bodies were browbeaten to accept the proposals.
Earlier this week, Mr. Yechury met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the issue. Dr Singh is said to have told Mr Yechury that the implementation was hasty.
However, Human Resource Development Minister, M.M. Pallam Raju on Friday said the Prime Minister’s Office had not given any instructions on how to respond to the situation. “The PMO only asked that the complaints raised by the MPs be looked into,” he said.
