The Executive Council (EC) of the Visvesvaraya Technological University received a shot in its arm with the Karnataka High Court bench headed by Justice B.S. Patil virtually upholding its stand and directing the Vice-Chancellor to appoint the Registrar for the university as per the provisions of the VTU Act, in Bengaluru on Tuesday.
A senior Executive Committee member told The Hindu that the court observed that the appointment of former EC member H.N. Jagannath Reddy as Registrar by the Acting Vice-Chancellor V. Sridhar was not in accordance with the provisions of the VTU Act, 1994.
Dr. Sridhar had appointed Mr. Jagannath Reddy as Registrar of VTU on May 7, on third day since the former was appointed as acting Vice-Chancellor of the university. However, at least eleven EC members had disapproved Mr. Reddy’s appointment observing it as bypassing the provisions of the Act and declined to ratify the appointment when the matter was placed before the EC meeting held in Bengaluru on May 20. Yet, Dr. Sridhar had maintained that he had to take the decision under certain exigencies as per the Section 14(6) of the Act.
Subsequently, the acting Vice-Chancellor had issued a note to the EC members allegedly claiming that the Chancellor and Governor had upheld the decision to appoint Mr. Reddy as Registrar, which also was questioned by the EC members. Sources said the Vice-Chancellor had claimed that the appointment was upheld as per Section 14(8) of the Act, which actually pertained to employees of the university but not applicable to the appointment of the Registrar. Even the Governor and Chancellor Vajubhai Vala had advised Dr. Sridhar to appoint Registrar as per the Act then.
In the meanwhile, three prominent EC members — R. Shivakumar, L. Vasudevamurthy and C. Kalaivinan — filed a writ petition in the court last week questioning the appointment of the Registrar and that the a Registrar could be appointed under Section 15(1) of the Act, a view which was upheld by the court.
The EC member said the court’s direction indicated that Dr. Sridhar was in hurry to have his choicest person in the office of Registrar at the Jnana Sangama campus of VTU. But, in the process, he bypassed the rules and regulations of the VTU Act which are meant to be observed in all matters, or else the very spirit of the Act would stand defeated, as it happened in the present case.
