After hearing a petition filed by Durba Sanyal, a former student of the university, the Calcutta High Court held last week that the RBU had conducted the BEd course from 1996 to 2000 without obtaining recognition from the National Council for Teachers Education (NCTE).

When contacted, Pabitra Sarkar, former vice-chancellor of RBU said, “I was not aware about this fact.” Sarkar, who was the V-C from 1996 to 1997, added the former registrar of the university failed to inform him about this issue.

The NCTE Act 1993, which came into force on July 1, 1995 made it clear that any teachers’ training institute in the country cannot conduct courses without obtaining recognition from the council.

The RBU had applied for the NCTE recognition of its BEd course in 1996. During the hearing in the High Court, it was also revealed that the NCTE was not satisfied with the university’s infrastructure for the course.

In a letter written in June 1998, the NCTE had asked the RBU to stop admitting students for the next academic year, but the authorities did not comply with the instruction. Shubhankar Chakraborty, who was the vice-chancellor of the university between 1998 and 2001, said that he had no knowledge about such a letter.

“The letter was not placed before me. The registrar had not informed me about this problem. After taking charge as V-C, I did not feel the need to inquire about the affiliation of the BEd course,” said Chakraborty.

The RBU finally got the NCTE recognition for the 2000-2001 academic session, but it is surprising that how Chakraborty, who left the university in the first quarter of 2001, could have not known about the development.

Subsequently, the Centre had issued NCTE (Amendment and Validation) Ordinance in 2006, which gave the university an opportunity to regularise the course by paying a penalty to the NCTE, but no step was taken by the authorities in this regard.