In the RTI response, NUJS claimed that Navin Thayyil, a PhD scholar from the Netherlands who applied to NUJS in December 2012, was denied a Skype interview, because “interview by Skype cannot be held for the post of Assistant Professor (Law) since demonstration lecture is to be given by the candidate”.

However, former VC MP Singh told Legally India that he had granted Skype interviews during his tenure to applicants Anup Surendranath and Yashumati Ghosh, adding that he may have also interviewed others via Skype, which “the records of the time may disclose”.

According to several NUJS sources, an English professor was also recently appointed at the college after a Skype interview without having required to take any demonstration classes.

A senior member of NUJS staff told Legally India that the information in the RTI was supplied directly by the vice chancellor’s office and added that at the time of Thayyil’s application there was no requirement for applicants to do demonstration classes.

Former NUJS professor Shamnad Basheer raised the issue of Thayyil’s interview in his resignation letter in December 2013, noting that “I took issue with your refusal to grant a Skype interview to a very promising Indian scholar from the Netherlands, owing to which we effectively lost him to IIT Delhi. You will recollect that the Executive Council also took strong note of this and recommended that Skype interviews be granted to scholars who are unable to fly at short notice to Kolkata.”

A petition by NUJS alumni, which has ostensibly been signed by nearly 500 students and alumni, claimed that “a former student of the VC was appointed as Assistant Professor” instead of Thayyil, and that “we are also given to believe that the Hon’ble Vice Chancellor sat in on the selection committee which appointed two of his former students (to whom he served as PhD guide) to the position of Assistant Professor and Associate Professor. We are given to believe that he failed to disclose this conflict of interest to the Executive Council which ratified the appointments.”

In an NUJS executive council meeting around 2012, Vivek Kumar, the West Bengal education secretary, had asked if Bhat had any personal relations with any persons who were appointed or promoted at NUJS’ faculty.

Bhat confirmed to Legally India that he had responded to Kumar, stating “I have no personal relation with any of them”, but added that he was merely a “guide” to two faculty members who were respectively hired and promoted, and who were studying a PhD and an LLM at Mysore University, where he was vice chancellor at the time.

Tomorrow the executive council will also most likely consider allegations raised by students about whether there have been irregularities in certain contracts at the college.