The election procedure can commence only when the Registrar issues the circular.

Elections to 17 vacant seats of the senate from the teacher's constituency are pending since the Chancellor countermanded the polls in July 2006. In October 2007, the division bench of the Bombay High Court had pulled up the university for not conducting the elections.

While Registrar K Venkatramani said that the circular will soon be issued, Vice Chancellor Dr Vijay Khole said it will be placed before the high court, which is hearing a petition filed by the Bombay University College Teachers’ Union (BUCTU). “The circular will be placed before the High Court and issued thereafter,” said Dr Khole.

None of the previous high court orders had prevented the university from updating their electoral rolls or conducting the polls for that matter. It was in January 2007, two weeks prior to the Senate elections, the Bombay High Court had directed the university to conduct the elections after updating the electoral rolls.

The high court had prevented the university from using a two-year old voter's list, which due to retirements, new appointments and other developments would invariably have discrepancies in it.

The Management Council had been deliberating over the voters’ list since November 2007 as the teachers' representatives had raised the issue of legality of voting rights of principals in the teachers' constituency.

The three-member advisory committee comprising Pro-VC A D Sawant, Venkatramani, and M S Khurade had in clear words included principals while defining teachers as per Section 2 (34) of the Maharashtra University Act.

After the matter came up for discussion in the month of December last year and in January, it was again referred for legal opinion.