Report ।। Shozab Muneer
Aligarh.An ordinary meeting of the Academic Council was held on 08.02.2025 reported by Taj Times on 07.02.2025 titled ‘AMU in doldrums again’. The news reported how the AMU overlooking legalities has placed item 26 and 27 on the Agenda regarding the Centres in the University and their merger with departments and change in the nomenclature of the courses/degrees. The impact of the news, according to some of the members, created a ruckus in the meeting pointing to the legal infirmities pointed out in the news item a day earlier.
The issue under item 26 pointed out that the Centres need to be merged with departments. The five Centres were Artificial Intelligence to be merged with Computer Engineering, Nanotechnology Centre to be merged with Applied Physics, Food Sciences and Technology to be merged with Chemical Engineering, Integrated Green and Renewable Energy to be merged with Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering to be merged with Mechanical Engineering and VLSI to be merged with Electronics and Communication Engineering. Item 27 depended on the merger of the Centres since only after merger a change in nomenclature would be required and would be legal.
According to sources Different members provided different versions of the decisions regarding the two items. Some say the items were rejected others inform no decision was taken. Yet again some say that the items were deferred to be returned to the recommending Committee for reconsideration. The Committee was constituted to recommend whether merger was legally possible and next to recommend the nomenclature for each merger. The Chairman of the both the Committees was the same, however the members were different. Some other members say that no decision could be reached due to the ruckus and the chaos that got created.
The normal practice as provided in the regulations of various bodies in AMU is that draft minutes of the meeting is to be circulated among the members with the request to raise any objections if the minutes have not been recorded accurately.
According to sources In the meantime, without the circulation of the draft minutes and waiting for objections, if any, an office memo has been issued by the Controller Office in just seventy two hours, without specifying any reason or the need. The circulation of draft minutes and waiting for objections, if any, is even more essential in view of varying opinion and no clarity on what transpired in the meeting. A Chairman of a department in anonymity said that no such decision was taken in the meeting.
Some senior teachers after studying the office memo suggest that it cannot be issued till the merger is approved for only the merged entity requires a change in nomenclature. A very senior teacher pointed out that the Chairman of Department of Chemical Engineering and Computer Engineering are missing from the circulation list, whereas two Centres were proposed to be merged with the former and one with the latter, and accordingly nomenclature was necessitated. There is an unexplained hurry in the matter to obtain the opinion of the Board of Studies of these centres and departments by 13.02.2025. Some of the teachers opine that there is some wishy washy in the matter and all is being done to hurry up the procedure to satisfy some vested interest, as was also reported by the Times of Taj in its related earlier report.
The Controller of Examination could not provide a satisfactory explanation for leaving out of the circulation list two of the departments and how a nomenclature change is possible without the merger proposed under item 26. On insistence he advised that an explanation maybe got from the Council Section, although the memo was issued by the Office of the Controller.
The MIC PRO on asking for the reason for the hurry in the matter and for two departments, mentioned in the item, being left out of the mailing list through a WhatsApp message but no reply was received. The reporter phoned the MIC but there was no response.
