Kannur: On October 4, Kannur University’s Senate -- its highest decision-making body -- convened a special session to elect its nominee to the Search-cum-Selection Committee tasked with recommending names for the next Vice Chancellor.

Former Health Minister and Mattannur MLA K K Shailaja proposed Dr P P Ajayakumar, English professor and former Pro Vice Chancellor of Kerala University, as the Left’s candidate. The UDF members put forward Prof Achuthsankar S Nair, former head of the Department of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at Kerala University.

With the Left holding a majority, Prof Ajayakumar was elected. Five days later, on October 9, he declined the role, effectively stalling the process to find a new VC.

A similar pattern played out at the University of Calicut. On August 25, its Senate elected Prof Dharmaraj Adat, former Vice-Chancellor of Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, as its nominee to the search committee. Two days later, he withdrew, citing personal reasons. There, too, the UDF’s nominee, Prof Achuthsankar S Nair, lost in the vote.

The move shows the LDF’s new strategy to block BJP influence in state universities, since two of the three search committee members are Union government nominees through the Governor Rajendra Arlekar and UGC.

Earlier, the LDF-controlled senates of state universities simply refused to send nominees to the search committees. Now, the front has adopted a new tactic -- nominating academics and having them resign within days, effectively stonewalling the selection process. Leaders in the Left camp say they are forced into this position after the UDF decided not to cooperate by nominating its own members to break the deadlock. "If we don't field our candidate, the UDF's candidate will be elected," said a CPM leader from Kasaragod.

Since the BJP came to power in 2014, the Governor and the state government have been locked in a tug-of-war for control over state universities -- a confrontation that has left 12 of the 13 state universities without regular Vice-Chancellors.

At Kannur University, the post has remained vacant since November 30, 2023, when the Supreme Court quashed the reappointment of Prof Gopinath Ravindran.

"The day Prof Ajayakumar was elected by the Senate, we said he would resign. And that’s exactly what happened," said Dr Shino P Jose, convenor of the pro-UDF Senators' Forum at Kannur University. "He is the same professor who guided CPM leader Chintha Jerome’s PhD, where a poem was wrongly attributed to Vyloppilli instead of Changampuzha. He will simply do what the government asks him to,” Dr Shino alleged.

When Onmanorama contacted Prof Ajayakumar to ask whether K K Shailaja had sought his consent before proposing his name at the special Senate meeting, he declined to comment. "I have given my reasons for declining to the university, and I have nothing more to add," he said.

Senate member Dr Shino said that each failed Senate meeting costs the university at least Rs 10 lakh, apart from the time spent by 80 to 100 members. "If the LDF has no intention of fielding a nominee to the search committee, it should not convene a special session with that as the sole agenda," he said.

On July 19, 2024, when Kannur University convened a special Senate session to elect a nominee, then Kannur District Panchayat President Divya P P sought permission from Vice-Chancellor in-charge Prof K K Saju to introduce a resolution stating that the Senate would not nominate anyone to the Search Committee. When UDF Senate members opposed changing the agenda, the LDF members pushed to remove the agenda altogether. By the end of the day, no nominee was elected, and the minutes recorded that the meeting voted not to nominate or elect a member to the search committee.

The LDF government started stonewalling the appointment of a regular VC in 2022. In June that year, as the tenure of Prof V P Mahadevan Pillai as VC of the University of Kerala was coming to an end, the Senate nominated Prof V K Ramachandran, then vice-chairman of the State Planning Board, as its nominee to the Search-cum-Selection Committee for the appointment of the next VC. But within days, Prof Ramachandran declined to take up the job. "That was the first instance of the LDF government using this strategy," said education activist R S Sasikumar. "That was also the start of the conflict between Governor Arif Mohammed Khan and the state government over the appointment of VCs," he said.

Since then, universities in Kerala resorted to stalling by not sending their nominees to the search committees.

Dr Shino, whose petition led to the quashing of Prof Ravindran’s reappointment, said only the Supreme Court can resolve this deadlock between the Governor and the state government. In August this year, the apex court acted in the case of APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University and Kerala University of Digital Sciences, Innovation and Technology by constituting search and selection committees with former Supreme Court judge Sudhanshu Dhulia as chairperson.

The Supreme Court set aside Governor Rajendra Arlekar's objections, directing both the government and the Governor to nominate two members each to the search committees. The committees will submit a panel of names to the Chief Minister, who will prioritise the candidates and forward the list to the Governor for appointment of Vice-Chancellors. The Governor may approach the Supreme Court only if he has an objection.

Notably, the apex court excluded the UGC/ AICTE from the search committee, contradicting both UGC regulations and its own earlier rulings. The Bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice KV Viswanathan also said that they would take up the larger issue of the Governor's powers at a later stage.

Supreme Court's order may not stand scrutiny
Education activist and Save University Campaign Committee chairman Sasikumar said the Supreme Court allowed the Governor to approach the court if he is dissatisfied with the priority list submitted by the Chief Minister. "That could bring the entire process back to square one," he said.

He also recalled that in October 2022, the Supreme Court set aside the appointment of Dr Rajashree M S as Vice-Chancellor of APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University because the search committee had failed to recommend three names for the Chancellor to select from, as per UGC norms. The order also ruled that non-academicians should not be part of the selection committee. "In the current case, the two-member bench's judgment does not include the UGC nominee, and the chairperson is a judge rather than an academic," Sasikumar said.

The Left and the UDF said the only lasting solution would be for the Supreme Court to rule on the state's Universities Amendment Act, which the Governor did not approve.