Governor seeks govt's cooperation for permanent VC appointment

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Governor R V Arlekar will write to the government based on the Supreme Court's directive to proceed with the appointment of Vice-Chancellors in universities in a coordinated and cooperative manner. In the letter, it will be mentioned that the Chancellor holds the authority to form a search committee as per UGC norms, and thus, the cases against the search committees formed by the Chancellor should be withdrawn and the stay lifted.

There is a possibility of summoning Minister R Bindu and the Principal Secretary to Raj Bhavan to inform them in detail of the plan.

As soon as the Supreme Court order is received, the temporary VCs Dr. Ciza Thomas (Digital) and Dr. K. Sivaprasad (Technology) will be re-appointed and notified. The Supreme Court has directed that the process to appoint permanent VCs in both places begin immediately. The Governor is seeking the government's cooperation for this.

According to the Technical Universities Act, the search committee for the appointment of VCs has an AICTE representative instead of a UGC representative. While the rule prohibits the membership of anyone associated with the government, the Chief Secretary sits as a member of the committee. This is against the UGC norms.

Therefore, a search committee needs to be formed as per the UGC rules. The Governor will inform the government that a representative of the university should be allowed to participate in this. The UGC has requested that the University Act be amended as per the UGC norms, but this has not been implemented yet.

The Governor had formed a search committee comprising representatives of the UGC, Chancellor and AICTE for the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor of the Technical University in July last year. In lieu of this, the government formed a committee comprising representatives of the university, the Higher Education Council and two government representatives. The High Court put a stay on the committee formed by the government.

However, the President had recently denied his assent to the Universities Act Amendment Bill passed by the Assembly, which was based on the formation of a government search committee. Therefore, such steps are no longer possible.