The vice principal of a prominent Kolkata law college on Friday said she was forced to resign by a group of students after an overnight siege in her office over her decision to enforce the mandatory 70% attendance rule
Tarannum said the bar council rules don’t allow people without a minimum of 70% attendance to sit for law examinations. She added that Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Kaustav Bagchi, who is also president of the college governing body, told her to allow students with up to 40% attendance, but she declined. “Even the Supreme Court has said in a judgement that 70% attendance is mandatory. In certain circumstances we may offer a 5% relaxation.
But the problem at Surendranath Law College is that attendance was not recorded properly. There is no attendance register. How can the attendance rules be enforced under such circumstances?” he claimed.
Because the college’s administrative machinery of tracking attendance was flawed, bagchi claimed he recommended the relaxation.
“I was gheraoed overnight. I was not even allowed to have food and water. I did not resign.
I was forced to resign,” Mohammadi Tarannum, vice principal of Surendranath Law College, told reporters before before leaving the campus. Her resignation letter – addressed to Calcutta University vice-chancellor Ashutosh Ghosh and circulated by the protesting students – cited her decision due to “certain unavoidable family, health-related and personal issues”.
