Supreme Court to decide on VC appointment if dispute continues

NEW DELHI: If disputes continue between the Kerala Governor and the state government regarding the appointment of Vice Chancellors (VCs) to the newly formed Digital and Technological Universities, the final decision will rest with the Supreme Court. The court will hear both sides before making a judgment. This provision is part of the Supreme Court’s order that established a search committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge Sudhanshu Dhulia, similar to the model followed in West Bengal.

The search committee must submit a panel of three names for the Vice Chancellor appointment in alphabetical order, not based on merit, to the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister must take further action within two weeks. The CM can rank the names in order of preference and forward the list to the Governor. If the Chief Minister has objections to any of the names proposed by the search committee, the reasons must be documented and submitted to the Governor, who also serves as the Chancellor.

If the Governor accepts the list as submitted by the Chief Minister, the Higher Education Department must issue an official appointment notification for the VC within one week. However, if a disagreement arises, the matter will be referred back to the Supreme Court.

Objection process:
If the Chief Minister raises objections to any of the names in the panel provided by the search committee, and the Governor does not accept those objections, the matter can be taken to the Supreme Court. Similarly, the Governor may also have objections to any of the names. In such cases, the Governor must record the reasons for the objection in the official file.

List submitted by the government for search committee members

For Technological University:

1. Prof. Ram Ramaswamy – Former VC, Hyderabad Central University
2. Niloy Ganguly– Professor, IIT Kharagpur
3. V.N. Achutha Naikan – Professor, IIT Kharagpur
4. Prof. K.N. Madhusoodanan – Former VC, CUSAT

For Digital University:
1. T.R. Govindarajan – Visiting Professor, University of Madras
2. Dr. S. Chatterjee – Retd. Professor, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru
3. Dr. Sabu Thomas – Former VC, MG University
4. Dr. T. Jayaraman – Former Director, TISS
5. Dr. Gangan Prathap – Former VC, CUSAT

Governor’s list (For Both Universities):

1. Prof. V. Kamakoti– Director, IIT Madras
2. Prof. Abhay Karandikar – Secretary, Department of Science & Technology
3. Prof. Shireesh B. Kedare – Director, IIT Bombay
4. Prof. Avinash Kumar Agarwal – Director, IIT Jodhpur
5. Prof. S. Mukul Sutaone – Director, IIIT Allahabad
6. Prof. Prashant Krishnan– Director, NIT Calicut
7. Dr. Binod Kumar Kanaujia – Director, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar NIT, Jalandhar
8. Prof. Sachin Maheshwari – VC, Guru Jambheshwar University, Moradabad