President Pranab Mukherjee has approved dismissal of Vishwa Bharati’s vice chancellor Sushanta Dattagupta, accepting the recommendation of the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry.  

“The President has approved the Ministry’s proposal to dismiss the vice-chancellor today (Monday),“ a HRD Ministry official said, confirming the development on Monday.

With this, Dattagupta becomes the first vice-chancellor of a central university to have ever been sacked by the government.

 He was facing charges of committing financial and administrative irregularities.Dattagupta, who had about seven more months left to complete his five-year term in office, was appointed as vice-chancellor of the university by the erstwhile government of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in 2011. 

Vishwa Bharati was founded by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore in West Bengal in 1921.

 It was declared a central university and an institution of national importance by an Act of Parliament in 1951.  Mukherjee’s approval to the dismissal of Dattagupta comes after several months of consultation between the HRD Ministry and the president secretariat.

The president’s office had returned the file of the HRD Ministry’s proposal to remove Dattagupta a few months ago.