After our report that GNLU Gandhinagar’s outgoing director Dr Bimal Patel had de facto stripped registrar Dr Thomas Mathew of most of his powers, the Ahmedabad Mirror has reported that Patel has now removed Mathew from the post.
We understand that Mathew is continuing in his position as professor of science and technology at GNLU.
Assistant professor Jagadeesh Chandra TG has been appointed as the new registrar, according to the Mirror’s 21 March report, which noted that he is supposedly “yes-man”, while Mathew allegedly tried to keep Patel out of the loop about the proceedings of and “the formation of search panel to look for Patel’s successor”.
Apparently, Patel did not like that. According to an anonymous source cited by the Mirror:
“There was tension between the two even before the process to look for Patel’s successor began. Patel reportedly wanted to control the process of forming the search panel so that he could have a say in the matter. When he was not allowed to do so, he stripped Mathew of most de-facto powers of a registrar.”
We have reached out to Patel for comment or whether anything in the Mirror article required correction. Patel reportedly did not respond to the Mirror for comment either.
Mathew also did not respond to our request for comment.
Who will be next GNLU chief?
The deadline for applications to become GNLU director was 24 December 2018.
We understand that the director search committee (consisting of Gujarat chief secretary JN Singh, Gujarat University vice chancellor Himanshu Pandya and Gujarat high court senior senior advocate Pranav Desai), has reported on its director search process to GNLU’s general council in late January.
It is quite possible, therefore, that a shortlist of candidates may already be finalised.
We had first reported on 3 December that Patel’s 10-year tenure at GNLU had ended, though notification of the director position was already one month late at that point.
Three GNLU staff members then issued a written complaint to the Gujarat high court about Patel not vacating his seat quickly enough, and also complained that Patel had “taken away administrative powers of the registrar [Mathew], the officer responsible for carrying out the process of appointing the new director”, delegating the majority of Mathew’s duties to deputy registrar, Avinash Bhagi.
Comments
What kind of rubbish "story" is this? A tabloid sourcing news from another tabloid? I dont know if you are are stupid or plain lazy but this is ridiculous and stretching the limits of writing about events. Not a single document or university notification, no witnesses from the students, no quote on record from a faculty, not even the outgoing registrar.
There's nothing in this except speculation, guesswork and "understanding".
Sure Bimal may be a horrible director but is he any worse than LI?
Plus, this narrative very much fits with what we had reported in our earlier story, that Mathew has been stripped of his registrar powers (which I assume is undisputed).
Finally, the Mirror story has been out for quite a few days now - if it was [b]not[/b] accurate, surely Dr Patel, Mathew or someone else could easily issue a correction or denials to the Mirror, to us, to GNLU students, via Twitter, a press release, some friendly publications, or the many many other channels available to them.
He just wants to prove that degrees and qualifications doesn't matter, you should no the art of fooling people.
Su moto petition can save law University.
The administration should ideally give the interim incharge of institution to other able professors of the University who can be made acting VCs (even though GNLU is one of the few eminent universities being commanded by a 'Director' and not a VC but nonetheless).
Mr. Jagadeesh Chandra is another honourable man who has no or very little experience in any type of administrative duties before he took charge as Registrar I/C (literally 'I see' that very recently, Honourable men have started the trend of becoming Registrar Incharge because they didn't have the requisite experience/ qualification to be designated as Registrar). As far as the Dean knows, Mr. Chandra never had the honour of running any prominent Committees or Centres at GNLU that would have given him the relevant exposure. But then, all honourable men should get the honour of serving the great national institution like GNLU.
Ultimately, I would say that whatever honour has been brought to GNLU is because of the Honourable men who have served on academic positions while they knew very less about academia and were more interested in administration like construction of campus (with regular conflicts with the constructor), maintaining gardens (we all know who was earning money for the upkeep of gardens), transferring kids from NRI seats to General seats (objections were raised by CAG of India), conducting CLAT (Ha Ha Ha how wonderfully GNLU did it), defending cases in Gujarat High Court (let's not even talk about it), etc.
However, some honourable men are not even doing good in administration. While closing his comment, the Dean will tell you a recent incident that left him speechless. First of all, GNLU missed convocation for the graduating batch of 2017 (God knows why) when it was supposed to happen. Later on, they conducted convocation for 2 batches together in January 2019. It was almost heart breaking to see some parents not being able to find seats where they can honourably sit and watch their kids receive degrees. And this was just a small scale event for like hardly 500 people. But then, who am I to point fingers and blame the honourable men who were responsible for successfully conducting this and all other GNLU events.
Last but not the least, the kids of GNLU should also look up to their pseudo faculty-administrators and try becoming honourable like them. As of now, the kids are probably not bringing home the honour that they ideally should.
Having said that (before his issues with the staff started in the last 2 years of his term) he was quite resourceful. Unlike other VCs who have faced protests, he did just enough to have some highlights to point to. For example:
1. Depending on how you see it he was resourceful/politically connected enough to ensure the Guj Govt comes through with its promise of land and funds for constructing the new campus. (Notwithstanding nostalgia, the batches which have seen both campuses will agree how much of an improvement the new one is over the old one.)
2. He got a deal with the [b]International Law Commission [/b] to take 1 GNLU intern [b]every year[/b] which is something no other NLU has.
3. His connections were helpful for students to get internships with Law Commission of India and with other judges or Central / Guj govt organisations.
4. During his 10 year tenure, day zero placements went from non existent to AMSS_Trilegal every year to multiple firms every year. (While enlightened souls here may not appreciate, for many not-welloff students, a tier-1 job is the ticket to middle/upper middle class)
5. He made funds available for student activities. (When students are busy they dont have time to protest!)
a. GIMC moot grew, new GMSIL moot was started.
b. Lot of subsidies were made available for moot participation travel
c. New debate and Mock UN competitions were started.
d. Sports fest went from internal to inter-uni sports fest.
6. Semester exchanges with universities abroad! Correct me if I am wrong but other than NLS NALSAR, GNLU is the only NLU to have multiple semester exchanges with foreign unis. These are legit and foreign students also come to GNLU under this programme.
7. Microsoft established a chair, Khaitan established a chair. While the professor positions remained vacant, he has to be credited with having levereged his contacts to make it happen.
While it is true that credit for point 5 could go to students, the other points may not have been possible without BimPa.
Things need to be really bleak for student protests to break out. GNLU situation has always been less than ideal but there were always enough carrots for students to not protest.
Less than complete adherence to PNJ, no representative student body but there was progress. This is a trade off which is seen in many places around the world. Think Singapore, think Dubai. Trade off between representative govt and progress is not uncommon.
You all are like my brothers and sisters in a family law class at an esteemed law school.
Having said that, let us have a healthy debate about the points raised by you.
1. I don't doubt that the new campus is a great improvement. However, you should go beyond the administrative building and academic buildings and move to areas that have much less to do with faculty members. Please take a note that mess feels like an oven specially in April-May and July-September. Students visit the mess 4 times a day and have to bear the heat while relishing tasty mouth-watering food.
The intelligent constructor first cut down all the trees and new ones were planted only after or around the time the campus was officially inaugurated. You may now say that Director ji had no say in that. But then again, if trees were not cut down, then someone must not have got all the gardening and maintenance job.
Coming to the hostels, boys hostels do not have attached washrooms even though the administration had all the funds and land available. Please keep in mind that UGC had once granted Rs. 10 crore to GNLU while a lot of construction was still underway. A tiny fraction of that could have been spent to build attached washrooms. Please don't say now that attached washrooms are a luxury and don't ask for that. Luxury may be asking for ACs in the hostel but not this. A person paying more than INR 2 lakhs per annum through the "[i]khoon-paseene ki kamaai[/i]" of their family deserves that much. At least in the name of SWACHH BHARAT.
Also, construction of campuses, passing of construction approvals and bills, acquisition of cement, glass, contracts for air-conditioning, etc. have quite a few times pointed to certain ways and methods of routing of money in the economy. There can be several reasons for construction picking up and acquisition of resources at such a fast pace. I can't openly explain such reasons here.
2. A deal that benefits 1 student out of about 1000 is not, in my view, "a good deal" for other students other than the beneficiary. It might be very good but here we are discussing interests of the whole GNLU student community.
3. I agree on this one with you. "Friendly" students were also helped with recommendation letters, privileges in getting internships and jobs and other types of "jugaadbaazi" that is totally in contrast to the idea of meritocracy that our society should ideally stand for.
4. I appreciate the fact that Tier 1 firm jobs are a matter of prestige for both the institution and the students and a "ticket" to acquisition of wealth. Having said that, Placements and zero day offers wouldn't have been possible if the students didn't have that calibre. Making firms like SAM, CAM, Trilegal, Khaitan, Platinum, etc. come to campus for recruitment is surely a big achievement for GNLU but I will give more credit to the efforts of students as CRA members, interns and current/ former employees of these firms for making good name of GNLU. Objectively speaking, let me give 1/10th or 1/20th credit to His Excellency for his efforts.
5. Boss, funds ought to be made available for all such activities. Universities exist for students and related activities. What else do you expect of him to do with all the money they raise from hefty fees, government grants, etc.? Again, points a. to d. are all efforts of the students and a few faculty members. I will give more credit to them for creating awareness among peers and encouraging participation. I frankly don't understand what credit does His Excellency deserve here. For giving a mere "sign of approval"? That would be like writing poetry to thank NHAI for completion of a highway project. Duh, they were SUPPOSED TO DO THAT ONLY in the first place. They get paid for it. Please don't encourage [i]andhbhakti[/i] in GNLU.
6. Semester exchange - refer to my reply to point 2.
7. So what are the significant contributions of these chairs other than sending "daily bulletins" which is like cut-copy-paste of 10-12 newspaper articles? Have they come out with any ground-breaking research? Or any good research at all? Mere establishment of chairs does not make a difference till the time the institution produces results. A saying in Hindi goes like [i]"unchi dukaan, feeka pakwaan"[/I].
8. Whenever students tried protesting, they were threatened with cancellation of PPOs, prosecutions, etc. Any career-oriented student wouldn't get in that mess. They would rather think of passing their time and graduating asap rather than dealing with the "games" of administration. I remember a time when certain students came to know about the "favouritism" that went on in Committee on Recruitment Affairs and tried bringing that to light. However, they were made to keep their mouth shut or face "consequences".
Such factors lead to suppression of protests. But, wait for it my friend. Revolution will happen.
9. Think Singapore, Think Dubai, Think Bimal Patel. Period. xD
What could be achieved by protesting common washrooms? Would student protests have resulted in boys hostel being demolished and rebuilt? I dont think so.
The only point made above was that in NLUs where protests happened, *no good thing* was happening. GNLU under BimPa is hardly ideal but atleast *some* or few good things did happen which is why large scale student protests did not take place.
Having a chair with possibility of it being filled by a good prof in future is better than having no chair.
https://in.linkedin.com/in/professor-bimal-patel-26904a7a
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V._S._Mani
One year LLM was approved by UGC in 2013 and Bimal patel got admission in based on one year LLM in 2008.
He has done fraud and is lible for punishment under IPC and can be booked for fraud.
Take note kina and do some story on this.
Hope you can understand at this time.
Don't believe "the vested interest" logic defaming Prof. Patel.
Nothing is to happen him as he has earned loads of blessings over these years from students, parents, staff and their families for doing good.
God is with him. He is here and will be here.
Truth triumphs.
By stating that "he is here and will be here", you are actually suggesting that Patel ji shall be violating the GNLU Act and stay for more time than is prescribed by the Legislature. That will be illegal and against administrative law. In that case I will suggest my friends at Gujarat HC to file a PIL and seek his dismissal through HC orders.
https://news.careers360.com/gnlu-annoyed-director-patel-replaces-registrar-over-access-successor-search
https://news.careers360.com/gnlu-decade-bimal-patel-director-ship-ends-post-retirement-application-invited
Few known name includes:
Dr. K d rao- NLUO VC
Dr. Jasbir Singh -
VC OF Assam NLU
NATRAJAN
These are the final name from which the names will be shortlisted.
Atlest all are much more qualified than BIMPA.
ITS AN IRONY THAT BIMAL PATEL BECOME QUALIFIED FOR VC AFTER completing HIS TERN AS VC.
still not for law University because he doesn't have LLM and valid LLM degrees.
Is it possible to register as advocate without having LLB?
Is it possible to register for PhD without LLB and LLM degree? How you got registered it's a mystery.
Jaipur University removed the details of PhD students after complaint was made against Bimpa.
BIMPA don't worry [...]
It is possible in foreign countries so BIMPA go work as operator in your son's company in Netherlands.
See Wikipedia also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimal_N._Patel
You people are crossing all limits.
Please take a note that many Wikipedia pages are made by [i]bhakts[/i].
https://www.jnu.ac.in/Faculty/bhdesai/CV.pdf
1. GNLU has now advertised for a new registrar. Is this appropriate when Bimpa is an outgoing Director?
https://gnlu.ac.in//Content/gnlu/pdf/careers/RP-02_2019%20Non%20Teaching%20Positions.pdf
2. The advertisement has also advertised for two placement officers. Is GNLU the only NLU with specialist placement officers?
3. Advertisements for faculty positions have also been issued, with over 2 lakh a month salary. Is this the highest among NLUs?
https://gnlu.ac.in//Content/gnlu/pdf/careers/RP-02_2019%20Teaching%20Positions.pdf