Gautam Majumdar stepped down as officiating vice-chancellor of the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology (MAKAUT) on Tuesday, less than a month after he was appointed to the post by governor C.V. Ananda Bose.
His predecessor, who, too, was handpicked by the governor, had been removed by Bose in mid-July.
The governor is the ex-officio chancellor of MAKAUT and all other state-aided universities in Bengal.
Majumdar, a professor of mechanical engineering at Jadavpur University (JU), said on Tuesday afternoon: “I have stepped down for personal reasons. My resignation has been accepted by the chancellor.”
Majumdar resigned four days after Amitabha Datta stepped down as JU’s officiating VC. The governor had reportedly asked Datta to quit following a complaint against him by some teachers of the university.
An official at MAKAUT, to which all private and government engineering colleges and private management institutes in Bengal are affiliated, said Majumdar went to Raj Bhavan on Monday along with officiating VCs of other universities to attend a dinner hosted by the governor.
“We were surprised to learn that our officiating VC has resigned so soon after being appointed to the post,” the official said.
MAKAUT’s last full-term VC, Saikat Maitra, had quit on March 16 after his name featured among 24 VCs whose appointments were set aside by Calcutta High Court on March 14 on the ground that the government had not followed UGC rules while appointing them.