Mumbai, April 27: The Governor of Maharashtra and Chancellor of universities in the State CH. Vidyasagar Rao on Friday appointed Dr. Suhas Raghunath Pednekar as the new Vice-Chancellor(VC) of Mumbai University (MU). Pednekar is the Professor of Chemistry and Principal of Ramnarain Ruia Autonomous College. The Governor handed over the letter of appointment to him at Raj Bhavan, Mumbai.

According to the official announcement from the Governor's office, Dr. Pednekar will hold the position of VC for a period of five years or till he attains the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier. He has replaced Dr. Sanjay Deshmukh, who was sacked for gross negligence and failure to announce the results of the March 2017 university exams in time earlier. The governor exercised the powers conferred upon him under Section 11(14) (e) of the Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016, to remove Deshmukh from his post.

Also, Deshmukh turned out to be the first VC in the history of MU to have been dismissed from his post. After Deshmukh's removal Dr. Devanand Shinde, Vice-Chancellor of Shivaji University, Kolhapur was holding the additional charge of the post since then.

For the appointment of Vice Chancellor of the University of Mumbai, the Governor had constituted a Search Committee under the chairmanship of Dr. K. Kasturirangan, former chairman of ISRO to recommend to him a panel of names suitable. Dr. Shyam Lal Soni, Director, National Institute of Technology, Pauri (Garhwal) Uttarakhand and Bhushan Gagrani, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, CIDCO were other members of the Committee.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 27, 2018 02:39 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).