Supreme Court stays perks of newly appointed VCs in West Bengal varsities, asks Guv to sit with CM to resolve dispute

financialexpress.com:

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the emoluments of the newly appointed interim vice-chancellors of state-run universities in West Bengal, reported PTI. This comes in the backdrop of a bitter tussle Mamata Banerjee government and the Raj Bhawan over how the state universities should be run in the state.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Dipankar Datta said that there is a need for reconciliation between the governor and the chief minister “in the interest of educational institutions and the future careers of lakhs of students”.

The order stated that the stay on emoluments to interim VCs appointed in August will continue till the pendency of the state government’s petition against the governor’s action of appointing interim vice-chancellors. West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose is the ex-officio chancellor of state universities.

“Please convey this to the chancellor. Our request is to fix a date and time that will be convenient for the chief minister, and invite her for a cup of coffee so that these things can be discussed and sorted out,” the bench told senior advocate Dama Sheshadri Naidu, appearing for the Governor.

Justice Kant said, “We agree, sometimes there are differences of opinion between constitutional functionaries. On the judicial side, we judges also disagree with each other. But that does not mean we stop meeting and discussing things.”

The top court was hearing an appeal of the West Bengal government against the June 28 order of the Calcutta High Court which said there was no illegality in the orders issued by the Governor appointing interim VCs in 11 state-run universities.

The state government was represented by senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi. He argued that after the court had issued notice on the