Yogendra Yadav will not move court against removal from UGC

New Delhi: Sacked UGC member Yogendra Yadav today said he would not challenge his removal from his post because the kind of “moral and political support” he was getting mattered much more to him than any legal order. Yadav was removed from UGC for being a member of Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party as the HRD Ministry said his association with the apex body of higher education may give a scope for its “future politicisation”. Holding that the order of the HRD Ministry on September 18 removing him as a member was “illegal”, he claimed the Ministry had even rushed to file a caveat in the Delhi High Court on September 24 in anticipation of the order being challenged. [caption id=“attachment_1139895” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Yadav was removed from UGC for being a member of Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party. Pic: IBNLive[/caption] “I am happy to be relieved and am truly relieved. Therefore, I do not plan to seek any more relief from any court of law,” he said in a letter to HRD Minister MM Pallam Raju. Yadav said ever since the Ministry issued him the show cause notice, hundreds of students, teachers, researchers and public intellectuals, “including some of the finest minds of this country” have protested against this move. “This kind of moral and political support matters much more to me than any legal order. It tells me that when one voice of dissent is suppressed, many more and more powerful voices come up from nowhere. It assures me that the larger questions that I raised within UGC will continue to be raised in my absence,” he said. Yadav was replaced by former IIT, Kanpur, Director SG Dhane as the new UGC member. Yadav is the first member in the history of UGC to have been retired by the government. “This badge of honour assures me that I must have done something right,” he said. PTI