Yogesh Tyagi takes charge as 22nd VC of Delhi University

New Delhi, Mar 10: Former South Asian University Dean Yogesh Tyagi today assumed charge as 22nd Vice Chancellor of Delhi University, over four months after his predecessor Dinesh Singh demitted office completing a controversial term.

Tyagi was welcomed by university officials and others, led by pro-Vice Chancellor Sudhish Pachauri, who had been the acting VC since October last year.

"I wish to work for the university by taking all stakeholders on board, everybody's views will be taken before arriving at any decision. I am not saying there will be no mistakes, but rest assured there will be no dishonesty," he said while addressing the gathering.

Several present and former Vice Chancellors of various universities, including Jamia VC Talat Ahmed, former DU VCs Upendra Baxi and Deepak Pental, Gujarat Central University VC H C Patel and Lucknow Law University VC Gurdip Singh, and Amitabh Mattoo, who was adviser to former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, were among those present to welcome Tyagi.

Tyagi was sent a communication by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development on his appointment nearly a month ago but he had asked for some time before joining DU in order to "settle his responsibilities" at SAU.

He has been appointed by the HRD Ministry for a term of five years after his name was chosen from a panel of four persons by President Pranab Mukherjee, who is the Visitor of all central universities.

Apart from Tyagi, the others on the panel were JNU professor Rameshwar Nath Kaul Bamezai, former IIT professor and UPSC member Hemchand Gupta and Bidyut Chakraborty, a professor in DU's Political Science department. Tyagi has a PhD in Legal Studies from JNU and LLM in Legal Studies from Columbia University.

His immediate concern would be to clear the confusion over the grading mechanism under Choice-based Credit System (CBCS). Various issues including promotion and appointment of teachers, decision on the reservation policy and CBCS took a backseat with the VC's post lying vacant for over four months.

Unlike his predecessor, Tyagi is not taking up residence at DU and he will continue to live in his present residence at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Dinesh Singh, who had an eventful tenure which saw a massive controversy over Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) which was rolled back after intervention by the University Grants Commission, skipped today's programme. Singh had also been served a show-cause notice by the HRD Ministry for alleged financial and administrative irregularities.

PTI