Romila Thapar row: JNUTA claims registrar misreported facts

JNU Registrar said as per to no. 32 of Academic Rules and Regulations, emeritus professor who have attained the age of 75 were requested to submit their contributions to the varsity.
Romila Thapar
Romila Thapar

NEW DELHI: The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers Association (JNUTA), on Thursday, expressed anger against the university registrar for “misrepresenting” the facts in the controversy pertaining to historian Romila Thapar, who, along with 11 others was asked to submit her credentials for continuation of her post as professor emeritus.

“The JNUTA is perplexed by the press releases being issued daily by the JNU Registrar on the professors emeritus issue...The JNU Registrar has offered an entirely new rationale for the ridicule he is subjecting the university to internationally and thereby contradicted the university’s press statements from the days before,” JNUTA said in a statement.

In a statement on Wednesday, JNU Registrar Pramod Kumar, said that it was based on this new ordinance, no. 32 of Academic Rules and Regulations of the University, that emeritus professor who have attained the age of 75 were requested to submit their contributions to the university in last few years so that a committee set up for reviewing the position could look into it.

In their reaction to this, JNUTA said: “The purported aim, we are told, is to correct what the JNU registrar considers to be a huge skew in emeritus appointments, and to remedy alleged historical wrongs done by previous JNU administrations.”

“However, once again the JNU Registrar has misrepresented the facts...The R 32 of the new Rules and Regulations maintains the same condition as R 17 (II) of the Old Rules and Regulations with regards to eligibility for nomination as an emeritus, and adds only the contentious proviso of a review,” they said.

“A perusal of both the rules in the earlier R 17 (II) and the current R 32 shows there is no cap on the number of Professors Emeriti at all, and that no deserving professor could have missed out on being designated one because of it,” they added.

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