HC questions RU VC's legality of holding office

The High Court on Monday issued a rule asking the authorities concerned to explain under which authority Rajshahi University (RU) vice-chancellor M Abdus Sobhan is holding his post, reports UNB.

The HC bench of justice Tariq ul Hakim and justice Md Iqbal Kabir issued the rule after hearing a petition filed challenging the legality of VC’s reappointment.

Secretaries to the president’s office, education ministry and University Grants Commission (UGC), VC, registrar of RU and chairman of its Applied Physics and Electronic Engineering department have been made respondents to the rule which is returnable in four weeks.

Senior advocate AJ Mohammad Ali stood for the petitioner while deputy attorney general Kazi Mainul Hasan represented the state.

On 24 July, Salman Firoz Foysal, a former student of Computer Science and Engineering Department of the university, filed the petition challenging the legality of holding the VC post by Sobhan.

On 15 May, the writ petitioner sent a legal notice to the RU VC seeking his resignation for being reappointed as the VC with wrong information.

According to the writ, professor Abdus Sobhan was reappointed for the second term on 7 May, 2017 and he took the charge the same day.

On 21 June of the same year, he joined the Applied Physics and Electronic Engineering department as a professor and voluntarily resigned from the post on the same day, making the VC post vacant.

Later, Prof Akhter Farooque, dean of the Sciences Faculty of the university, was made VC for one day, which is contradictory to the RU Ordinance 1973.