Bidyut Chakraborty is retiring as Visva-Bharati VC after a controversial tenure

Visva-Bharati College vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty, whose five-year tenure on the central college was marred by controversies together with a land dispute with economist Amartya Sen and the UNESCO plaque problem, retired on Wednesday.

Professor Sanjoy Kumar Malik, Director of Kala Bhavana (Institute of Wonderful Arts), has been appointed because the official Vice-Chancellor, the college mentioned in a notification.

Malik will carry out the duties of Vice-Chancellor from midday on November 9 till a brand new Vice-Chancellor takes workplace or till additional orders of the Schooling Ministry, the notification mentioned.

The tenure of Chakarborty, who turned the college’s president in 2018, was stuffed with controversies that always took political turns and reached the courts.

The college had in April this yr directed Amartya Sen to vacate 1.38 acres of land on its Santiniketan campus alleging that he was having fun with it with out permission. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stood alongside the Nobel laureate and personally handed over some related official paperwork to him. The matter is now below court docket.

The newest controversy arose after the set up of plaques declaring Santiniketan a UNESCO World Heritage Web site. The hoardings bear the names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the previous chancellor, and Chakraborty, however not that of Rabindranath Tagore who based the college in 1921, resulting in calls for for his or her removing from varied quarters.

In 2020, Visva-Bharati was closed for a interval following violent protests in opposition to the college’s determination to construct a boundary wall across the venue of the Poush Mela, a prestigious annual cultural occasion that started greater than a century in the past.

A bit of college college students and academics additionally entered into disputes with Chakraborty over a number of points.