Court freezes appointment of college principals for flouting UGC norms

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The appointments of Arts and Science College principals by the government were temporarily put on hold for violation of UGC rules. The order was made by the Kerala Administrative Tribunal Division Bench comprising Justices P.V. Asha and K. Pradeep Kumar.

In 2022, the search committee appointed only 36 out of the 110 applicants selected as per the UGC rules. Later, when the remaining ones approached the tribunal, a few more were appointed as per the tribunal's order. Meanwhile, the UGC rules were relaxed to bring back the favoured candidates, and some were selected through the search committee. When those who were selected in 2022 again approached the court against this, the court cancelled the government's current list. The tribunal had earlier directed the government to form a selection committee in accordance with the UGC rules and to make new appointments from those who were not selected from the list of 110 applicants.

According to the UGC rules, only those who have presented their papers in the UGC Care List of Journals or similar reviews should be considered for the post of Principal. Contrary to this, the government relaxed the rules to consider even those who have written papers for college magazines. Moreover, deputation was considered only for teaching as per the UGC rules, but this was tweaked to include those who previously worked on deputation in other fields. Based on these, the court froze the appointment list made without following the norms. M. Fathahudeen appeared for the petitioners.