Governor Arif Mohammad Khan on Thursday removed the vice-chancellors of Calicut and Sanskrit universities. The services of both the VCs (Calicut University's M K Jayaraj and Sanskrit University's T K Narayanan) have been terminated on the grounds that they were appointed in violation of UGC norms. The Raj Bhavan has ordered them to vacate office in 10 days.
In the case of the Calicut University VC, it was said that the Chief Secretary was included in the search committee formed to pick the VC. The UGC guidelines say that the members of the search panel should be persons of eminence in the field of higher education and should not be connected in any manner to the University or its affiliated colleges. Being a civil servant, the chief secretary automatically ruled himself out from a committee.
The problem with the appointment of the Sanskrit University VC was that there was only one name recommended for the VC's post. The UGC guidelines say that there has to be a panel of three to five names.
At the instruction of the High Court, the Governor who is also the Chancellor of state universities had scheduled hearings for four VCs on February 25. Even before the hearings could be held, Sree Narayana Guru Open University VC P M Mubarak Pasha had sent in his resignation.
Of the remaining three, only Digital University VC Saji Gopinath had met the Governor in person and presented his case. The Chancellor has referred his case to the UGC. The other two represented their cases through their lawyers. The UGC representative at the hearings argued that the appointments of all three VCs were invalid as they violated UGC norms.
The state government's argument was that the VCs were appointed on the basis of laws passed by the Kerala Assembly. It argued that it was the laws passed by the Kerala Assembly that made the Governor the chancellor and insisted that it had the right to amend its laws. However, the counterargument was that whenever a Union law came into conflict with a state law, the Union law prevailed.
The Governor's action against VCs was triggered by the Supreme Court's 2022 verdict that removed Dr M S Rajashree as VC of APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University saying her appointment flouted UGC norms. Citing the very same reason, the Chancellor shot off show cause notices to 11 other VCs in Kerala.
However, on November 22, 2022, the High Court restrained the Governor from passing any order on the show cause notices served. In the course of time, as a result of court orders or exhaustion of tenure, seven of these 11 VCs demitted office.
