UBS chairman returns,says ‘same Dinesh Gupta is back’

Around 30 people including faculty members,office staff,students and officials like Dean Students’ Welfare Prof Naval Kishore approached him at his place in the morning. “They all caught me unaware. Respecting the support and requests from all to join back,I resumed my services today,” said Prof Gupta.

Back to the normal routine,he said he would be taking his MBA executive class from 6 to 8 pm. “The university authorities are happy that the situation has been resolved amicably. The university respects Prof Gupta’s decision to return which is in the interest of the entire university,” said Prof Naval Kishore.

Although Prof Gupta still believes that there could have been other ways to handle the crisis,he assures that he does not have hard feelings towards anybody. He added that there should have been a mechanism in place that should have been activated in such a crisis.

“Even if in a department like UBS which is student-driven — and where everything is done with the students’ consent,knowledge and approval—- if something went wrong,it could have been dealt with in a more effective manner,” Prof Gupta firmly pointed out.

Commenting on suggestions for improving the existing system,he said that he appreciates that the University has decided to constitute department-level student-faculty consultative committees. However,he added that the fact that each department is different from the other should not be over-ruled and ignored.

The students of UBS were in a jubilant mood. “As we have been saying,the department needs him and the entire UBS is happy. It is back to its normal routine functioning after a lull all these days. It was a combined decision to visit Prof Gupta’s place today,” said first year MBA student Arun Singh Bajwa.

Prof Meenakshi Malhotra,one of the seniormost faculty members of the School,said,“The entire faculty is very happy that he is back.”

Upset over the manner in which the incident of protest by M Com (e-commerce) girls was dealt with by the authorities,Prof Gupta had handed over his resignation letter to the Vice-Chancellor during a department faculty meeting on February 16. Despite several attempts,the authorities failed to get the stir called off,It was finally ended on February 14 after Prof Gupta had expressed ‘regret about ‘any misunderstanding’ in writing and handed it over to Pam Rajput,Chairperson of the committee constituted by the V-C to probe the issue.