Nitish Govt Prepares to Face Off Against Bihar Gov. Over Bank Account Freezing of Varsity Officials

The Bihar Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar and the Nitish Kumar government looked to be headed for a confrontation when the Raj Bhavan overturned a state administration decision to freeze the bank accounts of two employees of the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University in Muzaffarpur.

According to a senior department official who spoke on the record under the condition of anonymity, the state education department on Thursday suspended the vice chancellor’s and pro-VC’s salaries for allegedly failing to inspect the educational institutions under their purview as well as for failing to show up to a review meeting the department had called.

A day later, the bank in question received a letter from Robert L. Chongthu, the governor’s principal secretary, ordering it to immediately defrost the two officials’ accounts.

According to Section 54 of the Bihar State Universities Act, 1976, the state government has the authority to audit the universities, but Chongthu wrote in a letter to the education department that “your act to freeze the financial authority and bank accounts of both the office bearers is arbitrary and beyond jurisdiction.” You have interfered with the chancellor’s authority with this conduct that seems to be an assault on the university’s autonomy.

It claimed that the chancellor (governor) had directed that “these orders may be withdrawn and such unjustified acts may be avoided in the future.”

The episode has sparked a political brawl, with the governing coalition criticizing the “interference of the governor” and the opposition BJP siding with the Raj Bhavan while blaming the Nitish Kumar administration for the “collapse of the education system” in the state.

The Mahagathbandhan administration in the state is attempting to enhance the quality of education, particularly higher education, according to RJD spokesman Mrityunjay Tiwary, who spoke to PTI. The Raj Bhavan should stay out of such disagreements and refrain from interfering with an elected government’s operations.

Nikhil Anand, a spokesman for the Bihar BJP, said that Nitish Kumar is now inciting a confrontation with the governor, who also serves as chancellor of the institutions, since he has so woefully failed to improve the state’s educational system. The CM disregarded the independence of colleges and universities.