The state higher education department has appointed power minister Aroop Biswas president of the governing board of Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri College in place of Debasish Kumar, MLA and a mayoral council member of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.

The department issued an order on Tuesday evening, effecting a replacement in the college that shares its campus with Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Law College on Prince Anwar Shah Road in south Calcutta.

The replacement came days after Saraswati Puja at Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri Law College was heldunder police surveillance following a Calcutta High Court order.

Mohammad Shabir Ali, a former student and Trinamool leader at Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri College, which is a general degree college, allegedly tried to prevent law college students from organising the puja this year.

The high court had to intervene following a petition by some students of the law college alleging that “outsiders” were disrupting their efforts to organise the puja.

Education minister Bratya Basu visited the campus on Sunday and heard thestudents’ allegations regarding their fear of the“outsiders”.

Basu on Tuesday confirmed to Metro in a text message that Biswas had replaced Kumar at Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri College.