The former interim vice-chancellor of Jadavpur University Bhaskar Gupta Wednesday said the Raj Bhawan “lacked both moral and legal standing” to order his removal from the varsity.

Gupta was removed from the chair barely four days before he was due to retire by Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose, the ex-officio chancellor of the state-run universities.

“The show cause letter I received from the Chancellor’s office was ridiculous and had no legal basis," said Bose.

Referring to the West Bengal State Universities (Terms and Conditions of Service of the Vice-Chancellor & the Manner and Procedure of Official Communication) Rules, 2019, Gupta said that the law mandates that "a VC must write via the education department in order to communicate with the chancellor."

"There’s no way I could have responded directly to him”, he reasoned, adding that the ouster decision “lacked both moral and legal standing”.

One of the reasons behind his ouster cited by the Raj Bhawan was the convocation held at the campus last December.

An official from the chancellor’s office had stated that the VC went ahead with the convocation without the nod from the authority (the chancellor’s office), and deemed it illegal as it flouted several rules.

“The convocation was held following every norm in the book, with the best interests of students in mind and in keeping with the university’s glorious tradition. It had the necessary approval in the state budget and expenses were made strictly on the basis of government sanction. I did nothing wrong and I am not the least bit apologetic about it,” Gupta told PTI.

He said all resolutions regarding the convocation were unanimously passed at the executive council, the university’s supreme decision-making body, and its expenses were cleared by the institution’s finance committee.

"Those meetings were attended by the Chancellor’s nominee and he raised no objections about the decisions at the time," Gupta asserted. “Only he (Bose) can explain this outrage towards the ceremony.”

Gupta has also been instructed to bear the expenses of the convocation from his own finances.

Before his ouster, Gupta had to be hospitalised following the violence at the campus in the presence of state education minister Bratya Basu, who went to the campus to attend a meeting organised by a pro-Trinamool teachers’ organisation on March 1.

Gupta was accused of failing to control the violence at the campus and allegedly did not carry out the instructions issued by the chancellor’s office.

Dismissing the charges as “weak excuses”, Gupta said he was targeted for going ahead with the convocation despite the objection from the chancellor’s office.

“Even if I accept, for the sake of argument, that I had failed in discharging my duty on March 1 afternoon then it would be the first such instance of administrative failure in my 11-month tenure. Why is the file to appoint a permanent VC, duly signed by the registrar, gathering dust at the Chancellor’s office since last November? Was he waiting for an excuse to build this case?” asked Gupta.

Gupta said since the chancellor’s office penalised him to pay for the convocation’s expenses, he had received support from students and teachers.

“I receive messages of solidarity every day. Students have offered to pool in money through donations to raise funds for the Raj Bhavan-demanded reimbursement. Obviously, I have appealed to them not to do any such thing,” Gupta said.

With inputs from PTI