After weeks of delays, Professor Sudhir Krishnaswamy, has been formally declared as the Vice-Chancellor of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU).
Although a photograph of Krishnaswamy signing documents which formalized his appointment was leaked on Wednesday evening, the Student Bar Association maintained on Thursday morning that the appointment has been formally announced because an official circular on the matter has not been sent out - as is common practice.
“There is also no name plate on his door, although the Professor was seen inspecting various facilities today,” said a senior student at the university.
Professor Krishnaswamy could not be reached for comment as he was said to be in a series of meetings.
Krishnaswamy’s appointment, which was delayed for over 50 days, finally resulted in a protest by students demanding that the selection of Krishnaswamy, an alumnus of NLSIU and of Oxford, be formalized.
Angered by what they termed as obfuscation of the appointment process by some members of the university’s administration, students are gone on a three-day strike from last Saturday, which saw them skip term-end exams.
Although all that was pending was a formal decision on Professor’s Krishnaswamy’s appointment by the Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, who has a secondary role as the Chancellor of the University, members of the Student Bar Association explained a delay in the formalization of his appointment happened at the last moment, when they allege that the registrar of the university introduced a clause asking for confirmation of receipt of the appointment letter from members of the Executive Council (EC), which had decided on Krishnaswamy’s appointment as VC.
“This was not a part of the procedure, and because no one ever had to send a confirmation before, the EC did not and so, the letter did not move to the Chief Justice as it was supposed to,” a senior student explained.
The protests ended on Monday evening after Gogoi and Justice Sharad Bobde made a statement to a representative sent by students to Delhi, offering clarity on the situation.
Professor Krishnaswamy graduated in BA LLB from NLSIU in 1998. He has been a Teaching Fellow in Law at the Pembroke College at Oxford University, an Assistant Professor at NLSIU, and a Professor at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. He was also on the faculty of the Azim Premji University in Bangalore until this week.