THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Non-appointment of Vice-Chancellors in 8 universities due to Governor-Government war has led to a legal battle. An academic expert is planning to file a Public Interest Litigation in the High Court seeking a directive to the Governor to appoint VCs. There is a demand that a search committee should be formed and the VC should be appointed immediately to take care of the future of more than 10 lakh students.
There are no permanent VCs in Kerala, MG, CUSAT, Malayalam, Agriculture, Fisheries, Law and Technology Universities. There is a dismissal notice from the Governor for Sanskrit, Calicut, Open and Digital VCs. Due to the absence of VCs, the grievance redressal of students is in crisis. No teacher appointments are happening. The position of the temporary VCs is that appointments and policy decisions can be made after the arrival of the permanent VCs. The problem is that the Senate and Syndicate representatives are not assigned to the search committee formed by the Governor. The government's attempt to form a search committee on its own was also unsuccessful.
The demand in the petition is to form a search committee and appoint VCs as per the UGC regulation of 2018. According to the University Act, the search committee is made in various ways. The search committee consists of the Senate in Kerala and Calicut Universities, the Syndicate in MG, Kannur and Cusat Universities and the Government in Malayalam University. The Chief Secretary is a member of the technical varsity. There are court orders that the government should not interfere in the appointment of VC. The court dismissed two VCs after finding irregularities in the search committee.
However, the higher education department contends that the governor has only the power to appoint the VC, and the government will do the inviting of applications and forming the panel. The governor points out that the Chancellor, who is the appointing authority, is the one who has the authority to form the search committee. The search committee for the appointment of university teachers is constituted by the Vice-Chancellor with the approval of the Syndicate. The search committee for the appointment of the VC should not include any person associated with the varsity. The governor asked how the government can form a search committee when the pro-chancellor of universities is the minister of higher education.
Position of UGC is crucial