Lucknow University (LU) announced today, August 15, that it will not be hosting the 2024 edition of the Indian Science Congress (ISC). This decision is the result of a legal dispute between the government and the organiser. Earlier, the annual conference was scheduled to take place in January 2024, as usual.

IANS reports LU Vice-Chancellor Prof Alok Kumar Rai as having said, “The difficult decision has been taken due to a combination of recent events and the ongoing legal disputes that have made the successful execution of the conference untenable.”

A timeline of what happened

In March this year, the LU was delegated the responsibility of hosting the annual conference by the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA).

In May, the Department of Science & Technology (DST) of the Central government convened a meeting with the general president of the ISCA and the vice-chancellor of LU to discuss the terms and conditions for the ISC conference.

On June 5, the university said that the DST issued a formal letter to the university, setting forth the condition that all decisions related to the technical sessions of the conference would be overseen by a high-level committee constituted by the department DST.

In response, the ISCA general secretary wrote to the LU in July asserting that all decisions regarding the conduct of the conference shall remain under the purview of the ISCA.

This subsequently led to a legal dispute unfolding between the ISCA and the DST. Eventually, the ISCA filed a writ petition against DST’s intervention in its bylaws and related matters at the court.

“Given the complexity of the situation and the ongoing legal conflict between ISCA and DST, the University of Lucknow has regrettably opted to withdraw from its role as the organiser of the ISC conference,” said the vice-chancellor of LU

The varsity, which was inaugurated by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, hosted its first ISC conference in 2002.