KOLKATA: Jadavpur University continued to remain on the boil on Thursday, a day after the executive council (EC) scrapped admission tests for six arts faculty subjects, with the administration facing attacks from three fronts: Raj Bhavan, arts faculty members and students.Students gheraoed vice-chancellor Suranjan Das, drawing a strong rebuke from Das, who said he was ill and deserved better as a “senior citizen” than this “unconstitutional and undemocratic protest”. The V-C finally left the campus around midnight.A large section of arts faculty members, particularly from the English department, decided to stay away from the admission process to convey their sense of “betrayal and disappointment” at the manner in which their recommendations were “overturned” by the EC “at the last minute”. The Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association, too, weighed in, calling a cease-work on Friday.But it was a move from the Raj Bhavan that opened a new front for the beleaguered adm-inistration as well as the state education department. Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi on Wednesday sought a report on the unprecedented logjam on the campus in the middle of the admission season.Another faculty move would keep the administration worried. Seven departmental heads (of English, Comparative Literature, Bengali, Philosophy, Film Studies, Sociology and Education) gave a note to the Arts faculty admission committee vice-chairman, which made it clear that they were working with the administration under duress.The letter said they were “providing the modalities of admission” to their departmental heads “under protest” in the “full knowledge that any recommendation made may be overturned by the... university, as has happened several times over the past few weeks”. One of the seven departmental heads later told TOI: “None of my department’s teachers is going to participate in the admission process.” VC Das, also the chairman of the admission committee, did not attend this meeting.A large section of students and JU alumni erupted in protest against the dismantling of a “time-tested” admission system. The students’ dharna in front of the administrative building, which confined Das and other officials, entered its second day. It brought administrative work to a halt and put a question mark on how the university would take the admission process forward after students started filling admission forms anew from July 6.“We are not going to settle for anything less than the withdrawal of the executive council’s decision. We are in touch with Juta and will take all decisions in consultation with students and teachers,” History postgraduate student Avik Sen said.The situation on the campus may actually worsen because of the Juta cease-work call for Friday. Juta members would also assemble in front of Gandhi Bhavan from 12 noon to 3 p.m. to protest against the EC decision to scrap written tests, Juta assistant secretary Partha Pratim Ray said.The VC was as peeved with the students’ stir that kept him confined to his office. “I can’t move out of my office. I tried it twice on Wednesday but was stopped. The way the students have kept us in wrongful confinement is unconstitutional. I have a family, I am ill, we are senior citizens. Is this democracy?” Das, dressed in a kurta and a pajama and reclining on a sofa, asked.Das said he was only carrying out an executive council decision. “It took a unanimous decision. There are some departments that admit students only on the basis of entrance tests whereas some others give equal importance to the board exam marks. This explains the initial decision (toi give equal importance to board exam and entrance test marks). But the JU Act says the admission committee decides on admission procedures and so we referred this decision to the admission committee. But this committee could not arrive at a conclusion. A decision could have been taken had I cast my vote but I chose against it. Instead, I proposed this matter be referred to the executive council, which anyway had to take the final decision,” he said.He added that there was no voting in the executive council after the debate over admission procedures on Wednesday. Ten members proposed admission only on the basis of board marks, a process in vogue in Delhi University, but six others preferred an admission test. “But these six members then wrote on a piece of paper that they would still go with a a marks-based admission process for this year to break the impasse,” Das explained.

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