Jadavpur University Pro-Vice-Chancellor Pradip Kumar Ghosh left the campus after 72 hours, after agitating students lifted a gherao demanding a tripartite meeting on holding students' union elections.
Members of Arts Faculty Students' Union (AFSU), Science Faculty Students Union (SFSU) and Faculty of Engineering and Technology Students' Union (FETSU) started an indefinite sit-in outside Ghosh's office to press for their demand on Friday evening.
A member of the Jadavpur University Teachers' Association (JUTA) said the Pro-VC left the campus around 7 pm after sending a letter to the Higher Education department requesting immediate steps to convene a tripartite meeting of the university, students and the government for facilitating students' union polls in the institution at the earliest.
AFSU General Secretary Debraj Debnath said, "We have let the Pro-VC to leave the campus as he was not feeling well. But we will continue our sit-in for another 72 hours till there is concrete assurances about holding the tripartite talks at the earliest."
Students' union election was not held at the university for the past two years.
Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said on Sunday, "students' election process cannot be initiated solely for one institution."
The minister said a bill for forming students council in higher educational institutions, replacing students union elections, had been passed in West Bengal Assembly over a year back.
The university formed a six-member committee, which included four deans, to look into the circumstances behind the heckling of VC Suranjan Das during the agitation by students on February 19, Registrar Snehamanju Basu told PTI.
The JU authorities also formed a three-member panel to probe allegations of harassment of left wing students, some of them physically challenged, "during an agitation on February 19 and also on previous occasions," the JUTA official said.
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