National Law University Tripura (NLUT) Vice-Chancellor (VC) Prof Yogesh Pratap Singh has said that the appointment of Registrar in-charge Dr Jayanta Dhar was as per due process.

He has also alleged that the students' letter raising governance and safety concerns was written at the instigation of the University's former Registrar, Prof Nachiketa Mittal, who resigned while facing allegations of sexual harassment.

Prof Mittal had resigned from his post in May after the Tripura State Human Rights Commission (TSHRC) received an anonymous complaint alleging inappropriate conduct. Prof Singh said that the University could not initiate proceedings through its Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) as no one had filed a written complaint.

The VC said that after Mittal resigned on May 4, the University's Assistant Registrar filled in for about three weeks. During this period, he consulted the State's higher education department, which recommended appointing the senior-most available faculty member. This led to Prof Dhar's appointment as in-charge Registrar on May 26. Prof Singh's note formally seeking the State government's approval followed on May 29 and the concerned minister signed off on June 3.

Prof Singh said that Prof Dhar, an assistant professor, was chosen because the University had no professor among its faculty and that the State government had said that it could not spare an officer to hold the post either.

"I also understand that assistant professor should not be appointed but we didn't have any other option. We also asked (the state) government if they could spare an officer. They also said they don't have sufficient staff. So we have to work within that limitation but we are trying to get a regular registrar soon," he said.

On students explicitly saying that their complaint was not about Prof Mittal, Prof Singh said that he believed otherwise. He said that Prof Mittal has been in Agartala for the past 15 to 20 days, has been contacting and trying to influence students, and that the letter was circulated with his instigation and encouragement. He said that he intended to inform the Chancellor, Justice MS Ramachandra Rao, of this.

In their letter dated September 14, NLUT students raised a number of administrative and campus safety issues. They claimed that venomous snakes had been found in the Girls Hostel, with no remedial action taken thereafter. They also claimed that answer scripts were not being anonymised and that evaluated answer scripts were being withheld from students. The letter also mentioned that no grievance mechanism existed under Section 16(ix) of the NLUT Act.

It further said that financial disclosures fell short of Right to Information (RTI) Act requirements and that faculty on the roster had not been on campus in 4 years.

On withheld answer scripts, Prof Singh said that the University sets a 2-week window from the start of each semester for students to collect them and that some students miss this deadline. He added that the matter had been raised about a month earlier and that the University had agreed to extend the window to 3 or 4 weeks.

On the claim that some faculty had not set foot on campus in 4 years, Singh first pointed out that NLUT itself will complete only 3 years in November 2026. He said that the University's regular faculty members attend regularly under a biometric attendance system and that visiting faculty had also visited campus or conducted lectures online.

On the students' claim that financial disclosures fell short of what the RTI Act requires, Singh said that the University had published its financial statements for its first 2 years, but took them down after typographical errors were found. The corrected disclosures would be uploaded again in due course, he said.

The VC said that a detailed, point-by-point reply to the students was still being prepared, and that he intended to meet students directly to discuss their concerns. He added that the University was still in its establishment phase and was working with limited government support and faculty sanctions.

Students had also raised concerns about the functioning of the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) Act. Prof Singh pointed out that the ICC was constituted in NLUT's first year, with its details on the University's website.

On the students' call for a consultative body, he said that the NLUT Act does not provide for a student consultative committee. However, he said that the a student representative body could be created to enable students to communicate directly with the administration.