Nagpur: In an unusual stance, Nagpur University (NU) vice-chancellor SP Kane has gagged statutory body members and asked all postgraduate departments, conducted colleges and non-teaching staffers to not to give any information to media.The move is aimed at blocking media from reporting management council decisions, which indicated massive financial mismanagement.Following Tuesday’s meeting, the top brass refused to give information about management council meetings while members expressed helplessness. Yet, a copy of the agenda was leaked to the media bringing to fore why Kane wanted to keep it under wraps.So far, Kane has been holding press briefings after council meets while the administration was also not averse to members speaking to the media about the issues raised by them.The step by VC Kane on not making student-related decisions public comes in the wake of his ‘futile’ attempt to pass proposals involving crores of rupees on a short notice to members. The action is also surprising since last week the vice-chancellor suffered a major setback when he stood exposed in front of the senate as he unsuccessfully blamed the management council members for banning the media.The media ban during the senate meet was finally lifted after members dared Kane to play audio recording of council meeting to ascertain who took the decision.On March 19, the management council members were baffled when Kane read out norms on gagging them regarding agenda of the meeting.Top officials contested the Kane saying the VC misinterpreted the uniform statute. “The norms say members and officials should keep the agenda confidential till action is taken on the issues. However, he didn’t clarify that it pertains to only policy matters,” they said. Information about even policy matters can’t be held back to a large extent, the members said. “In case, the council meets over an exam issue, the administration has to make the masses aware of the problems and measures,” they said.Members blamed the VC of omissions and commissions as per his convenience. “In Dr Vedprakash Mishra’s diploma case and Sunil Mishra’s marksheet case, the same VC never objected to reportage of details, documents of which were preserved only in his ante-chamber. He even spoke to media at length over decisions and developments of all the management council meetings held in connection with the two cases,” they said.Kane and acting registrar Neeraj Khaty didn’t answer to TOI’s calls and sms. They even refused to meet this correspondent when he visited their office on Wednesday. On numerous occasions, Kane and Khaty have failed to reply to TOI’s queries regarding exam goofs, financial irregularities, recruitments issues and several problems faced by students.

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