Electoral rolls should be revised before Senate election: Panjab University ex-Vice-Chancellor Prof Arun Grover
The Tribune Interview: Prof Arun Grover, Former Vice-Chancellor of Panjab University
The Senate of Panjab University, the tenure of which is to end on October 30, is the governing body of the institution. However, no notification regarding the election or its extension has been issued by the Chancellor. Amid the uncertainty over the Senate’s future, Prof Arun Grover, former Vice-Chancellor of the university, talks of reforms necessary in the constitution as well as the functioning of the governing body in conversation with Akashdeep Virk.
Can changes be brought in the Senate and Syndicate? If yes, what should be the reforms?
Working within the present Panjab University Act, the following reforms are desired.
Election process for next Senate (2024-28) should be initiated only after the voter list(s) for the 15 Senators from the Graduate constituency has been verified by eliminating dead and unidentifiable voters. New voter cards ought to be issued for the electors.
The Senators, on behalf of the faculties, should be elected after all other members of the Senate have been elected from various constituencies and the nominations to the body by the Chancellor notified. The elected and nominated Senators ought to submit choices for the four faculties thereafter. This was the procedure followed when the Senate was constituted for the first time.
To elect 15 Syndicate members on behalf of the faculties, a Senator should have the voting right only in one of the five major faculties. All members of a given faculty should vote for Senate members to be elected from that faculty to the Syndicate. The added members to the faculties should not be permitted to vote for elections of the Senate/Syndicate members.
Election process for next Senate (2024-28) should be initiated only after the voter list(s) for the 15 Senators from the Graduate constituency has been verified by eliminating dead and unidentifiable voters.
The term of a given Syndicate should be two years, instead of one year as at present. A Syndicate member should not be repeated in a four-year term of a given Senate.
These changes can be brought about within the present PU Act via an appropriate notification from the Ministry of Home Affairs before starting the election process afresh.
The Senate of 2024-28 should take up modification in the existing regulations of the PU Act for the appointment of faculty deans, as desired by NAAC Peer Report of 2015 on PU.
Since you said the voter list must be revised, when was the last time the rolls were revised? Is bogus voting taking place in elections?
No idea precisely. It was stated in the Senate of 2016 once that the voter list has never been updated since its inception. The candidates for the Senate deposit Rs 15 per voter to enrol a voter for lifetime! It was said by Dr Dyal Pal Singh Randhawa, who has been a Senator for a long time and twice former president of the Panjab University Campus Students Council.
Has politics affected the workability of the Senate and Syndicate? How do you think politics entered a governing body?
The bane of governance of PU is the pure politics that affects the workability of the Senate and Syndicate.
A Senator can choose to become a member of four faculties. Any two Senators in a given faculty bring in an ‘Added member’ to the faculty.
To dominate the Syndicate, the Senate members form groups and make choices of faculties after deep consultations. Five major faculties also elect a Senate member each for a subsequent Senate. The minor faculties together also elect one member for the next Senate.
One can thus get elected as a Senator, Senate after Senate, via the route of representative of faculties. It can be one faculty in one cycle, and a different faculty in another cycle of four years of a Senate. The entrenched persons choose this route to retain their membership of the Senate for as long as they can manipulate the system. There is no limit to this process.
As a former VC, do you think the character of Senate should be changed? Or should it be done away with?
The previous Chancellor of PU had appointed a committee chaired by the present Vice-Chancellor, Central University of Punjab, to look at this question. The committee had submitted a report which has not been shared with the Senate of 2021-24. Prior to it, the three sub-committees comprising various stakeholders of PU had submitted a consolidated report, which was brought to the attention of Syndicate(s) and Senate of 2016-20 in July 2018. But the said report did not get debated by the governing bodies of PU since then. Both above stated reports called for a reduction in the size of the Senate.
Will the implementation of National Education Policy affect the structure or character of the Senate?
All the main features of the National Education Policy (NEP) can be implemented in the PU system within the present PU Act. Given the history of Honours School System in Lahore and Chandigarh up to 1988, the PU is best placed amongst all state universities of India to implement the four-year graduation system of the NEP in all areas.
