Supporters of the students’ wing of the Forward Bloc gheraoed the Calcutta University vice-chancellor and other senior officials for six hours on Monday to protest reduction in seats at Surendranath Law College.

The gherao, which started at noon, was withdrawn at 6pm after the authorities announced a meeting of the university’s syndicate body on July 10. The syndicate will discuss the students’ demand for a roll-back of the decision to reduce the number of seats in the five-year Ll.B course at the college from 240 to 120.

The university officials had called the chief minister’s secretary and informed him about the agitation. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee called Forward Bloc state secretary Ashok Ghosh. He got in touch with the vice-chancellor. The announcement of the meeting followed soon after.

“The students must understand that Surendranath Law College does not have the infrastructure to admit 240 students in the course,” said D.P. Dey, the university law secretary. He was one of the officials gheraoed.

The bar council, which regulates law courses, had recently instructed universities to ensure that only those colleges that have proper infrastructure run law courses. On the basis of the instruction, CU had inspected the five law colleges affiliated to it.

The inspection revealed that Surendranath Law College does not have enough full-time teachers. According to the bar council rules, the teacher-student ratio should be 1:40 or more. The ratio is lower at Surendranath Law College. It has not recruited full-time teachers despite new posts being sanctioned by the government, said university sources.

The Chhatra Bloc supporters forced their way into the main administrative building of CU in the morning and sat down in front of the vice-chancellor’s office. He was holding a meeting with senior officials at the time. The agitators locked the chamber from outside. They did not allow the office staff to enter the room.

“The authorities should have informed us earlier about the cut in the number of seats,” said an agitating student. Officials claimed the college was informed long before admissions began.

Chhatra Bloc had gheraoed CU officials on the Hazra Law College campus on June 27 and blocked Hazra Road.