Kolkata: Calcutta High Court on Wednesday rejected a petition by Visva-Bharati University Vice-Chancellor Susanta Duttagupta challenging a show-cause notice issued to him by Union HRD Ministry to explain his conduct over allegations of financial and administrative irregularities.
Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty while rejecting the petition directed Duttagupta to submit his reply to the authorities within three weeks.
Duttagupta had challenged the show-cause notice after the court had dismissed his petition challenging the jurisdiction of a fact-finding committee set up by the Human Resources Development(HRD) Ministry to look into complaints against him.
Justice Chakraborti had on July 15 dismissed that petition on the ground that a show-cause notice had already been served on him to explain his conduct over allegations of financial and administrative irregularities, on which the fact-finding committee has already filed a report.
Duttagupta's writ petition challenging the jurisdiction of the committee was dismissed as it became infructuous with the committee already filing its report and a show-cause notice served on the Vice-Chancellor on its basis.
The committee, comprising former Allahabad High Court judge Sakharam Singh Yadav, Sri Aurobindo Institute of Indian Culture (Shillong) chairman B B Dutta and Cambridge University professor Dilip Chakrabarti, had submitted a report to the ministry on the charges against the Vice-Chancellor.
S N Mukherjee, appearing for the Vice-Chancellor, had argued that Visva-Bharati was an autonomous institute and that the fact-finding committee had no jurisdiction to initiate any proceeding against the VC.
