President Pranab Mukherjee reportedly ignored the recommendation of Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani on Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

Updated on: Monday, February 01, 2016

pranab President Pranab Mukherjee reportedly ignored the recommendation of Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani, when he appointed Prof M Jagadesh Kumar as the Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

The selection committee had shortlisted four eligible candidates for the post, out of which Irani reportedly preferred scientist V S Chauhan. She let her choice be known to the President, but he went on to ignore the recommendation, and instead, chose Prof Kumar from IIT Delhi.

The other contenders for the post were both professors from JNU-- Ramakrishna Ramaswamy and R N K Bamezai.

According to an Indian Express report, HRD Minister Smriti Irani's choice for a central university VC was ignored once before by the President when appointing Mohammed Aslam Parvaiz as the head of the Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) in Hyderabad, last year.

However, it should be noted that the President is not obliged to follow the minister's recommendation, though precedents show that this is the norm.

Chauhan, a leader in malaria research, is a Padma Shree awardee. He was given the fourth highest civilian award in 2012 by the UPA-II. He has provided several contributions in the field of malaria vaccine and drug development.

Kumar has worked in the field of nanoelectronic devices, innovative device design, nanoscale device modelling and simulation, and power semi-conductor devices. The new JNU VC, who assumed office on January 27, pursued his Master's degree and PhD from IIT-Madras.

The HRD Ministry and the Rashtrapati Bhawan had previously disagreed on the sacking of Sushanta Datta Gupta, the Vice-Chancellor of Visva Bharati University.

When a probe found Gupta guilty of "gross misconduct" and "dereliction of duty", the government, on September 22, last year, called for his removal from duty. President Pranab Mukherjee, however was unwilling on the move and wanted Gupta's resignation, mailed on September 30, to be accepted by the Ministry.

The President Pranab Mukherjee 's office reportedly questioned the legality of the ministry's recommendation and twice returned the file on this account. The Law Ministry's opinion has been asked for, by HRD Minister Smriti Irani's department on this matter.

President Pranab Mukherjee reportedly ignored the recommendation of Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani on Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

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