CJI No Longer TISS Convocation Chief Guest, Institute Names Tata Memorial Hospital Director
The Wire Staff
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New Delhi: Days after postponing its convocation in which Chief Justice of India Justice Surya Kant was scheduled as the chief guest, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) has announced that Tata Memorial Hospital director C.S. Pramesh will be the chief guest.
The invitation for the rescheduled convocation on August 22 now names Pramesh as chief guest, Indian Express reported.
As The Wire has reported, the institute’s registrar had sent an email after midnight on August 1 (around 12:50 am) announcing the postponement of its 86th convocation due to "unforeseen circumstances."
Although the institute had not announced CJI Surya Kant’s name as chief guest in public, it was known to the student community. Several students told The Wire that the last minute cancellation had come only because the management feared protests following remarks by the CJI calling a section of unemployed young Indians “cockroaches”.
A movement that was triggered in the aftermath led to the resignation of union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
As the person who triggered the anger against the system, CJI Surya Kant has found himself on the receiving end of several such cancellations or postponements of public functions. The Wire has reported how the Justice H.R. Khanna Memorial Lecture, which was to take place on July 28 and had the CJI as its chief guest, was postponed.
Media reports also had it that the CJI was invited for the convocation ceremony at OP Jindal university and had reportedly declined to preside over it.
Closer to date, the issue of the CJI’s attendance at NALSAR University of Law in Hyderabad gained prominence after Bar Council of India chairman and Bharatiya Janata Party member Manan Kumar Mishra ordered state bar councils to not admit 2026 Nalsar graduates who were opposed to the CJI's attendance. He then retracted the order and eventually apologised.
Days after backing the students’ right to peacefully protest, the CJI said that he had not accepted the invitation to be chief guest at the convocation ceremony, so the question of him attending it did not arise.
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