State, governor must reach a consensus; or else court will directly appoint VC, warns SC

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has issued a strict directive on appointing Vice Chancellors (VC) in the universities. The state and the governor must reach a consensus. Otherwise, the Supreme Court warned of directly instructing VCs from the list. The issue was considered by the bench comprising of Justices J B Pardiwala and Prasanna B Varale.

Two search committees were formed to appoint the VCs of digital and technical universities under the chairmanship of retired Supreme Court Judge Sudhanshu Dhulia. The governor and the chief minister are competing with each other for the names from the list they provided. Dr Jin Jose and Dr Priya Chandran has the third and fourth positions in the list given by the chief minister for appointing the digital university VC. As the technical university VC, the chief minister has included the names of Dr G R Bindhu and Dr Priya Chandran in the second and third positions. However, the governor pointed the names of Dr Ciza Thomas and Dr Priya Chandran. With this, the dispute worsened.