BHIMDUTTANAGAR: The lockout at the central office of Far-Western University (FU) based in Bhimduttanagar, Kanchanpur has been lifted after nine and half months.

The padlock was put by the Nepal Students Union (NSU), FWU coordination committee following the removal of the then University Vice Chancellor Prof Bhusan Shrestha and Registrar Dwij Raj Bhatta.

NSU outgoing central member Kailash Chand said the agitation was the demand of time to avoid the situation of the University having two vice chancellors and two registrars. Our demand was for reinstating previous officials and their removal was the devaluation of the University’s independence and existing laws, he claimed.

The agitating students were convinced to remove the padlock on Saturday morning after it was informed a high-level taskforce has been constituted to seek a solution to the issue and the task force was heading towards the course of resolving the issue.

“We decided to lift the padlock as we wanted to ensure facilitation in the works of the taskforce,” the NSU said in a press statement this morning, It has warned it would re-agitate if the dispute was not settled by the next 15 days.

It may be noted that the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers on April 10, 2018 replaced the then Vice Chancellor Shrestha and Registrar Bhatta by University’s Faculty of Science and Technology Dean Prof Dr Purna Bahadur Chand and Faculty of Education Dean Dr Govinda Bista respectively citing dissatisfaction over the performance of the former two.

They had been relieved from the posts citing Clause 30 of Far Western University Act- 2067 BS.