Senate likely to see reforms

Amid the uncertainty over the fate of Panjab University’s governing body — Senate, speculations are rife that it may undergo reforms, reducing the size of the 91-member body and replacing the provision of a registered graduate constituency with postgraduate constituency or eminent alumni. In fact, the university authorities had recently offered the protesting students to be part of a stakeholders’ committee, which could suggest reforms to the Senate.

Governing body has 91 members

The Senate comprises 91 members, including 47 from eight faculty constituencies, while the rest are nominated or are ex-officio members. It is the apex governing body of the Panjab University and all decisions related to the university’s academics and the budget require its approval. Of the 47 elected members, 15 are chosen by the university’s graduates who are registered as Senate voters.

For the same, the authorities had sent recommendations of the 2018 governance reforms committee formed under the chairmanship of retired Justice Bharat Bhushan Parsoon to the student representatives. In 2021, a committee was constituted under the chairmanship of Prof RP Tiwari, then VC of Central University, Bathinda.

The 2018 committee had recommended the reduction in members of the Senate from 93 to 46. It was also recommended that the registered graduates constituency be replaced by postgraduates constituency and its size be reduced from 15 to 6, number of nominated Fellows be reduced from 36 to 8, no Fellow can have more than two terms, reducing number of polling booths from existing 282 to possibly only five-six, confined to territorial jurisdiction of the university, doing away with establishing polling booths in Jammu, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana, etc. Another recommendation was that discussions in Senate to be restricted to important policy issues by delegating powers to the Syndicate and streamlining procedures for debates in the Senate.

In 2021, the committee formed by the then Vice-President of India and the chancellor of PU under the chairmanship of RP Tiwari, then VC of Central University, Bathinda, had proposed to reduce the Senate’s size from 93 to 47 and curtailing the nominated members strength from 36 to 18. Instead of the Registered Graduate Constituency, it was recommended to have ‘eminent alumni’ of PU on the governing body of the university. The PU authorities claim that graduate constituency was relevant only when the university conducted matriculation and intermediate examinations.

The tenure of Senate ended on October 31 and the elections to it, which gets notified at least 240 days prior to the culmination, has not been announced. The Senators have also approached the court for the same, hearing of which is on December 10.