In an extraordinary move, Governor Arif Mohammed Khan has exercised his authority as the Chancellor of Kerala University to constitute a search committee to appoint the next Vice Chancellor of the university.
The manner in which the selection process was initiated is in contrast with the conventional practice in which the Chancellor entrusts the State government with proposing his/her nominee to constitute the panel.
Exercising powers
However, the Chancellor chose to exercise his powers conferred by Section 10(1) of the Kerala University Act, 1974, for the purpose. Debashis Chatterjee, Director of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode, has been nominated by the Chancellor as the convener of the committee. Battu Satyanarayana, Vice Chancellor of the Central University of Karnataka, has been nominated by the University Grants Commission for the selection procedure.
A notification issued by the Raj Bhavan on Friday stated that a nominee of the Senate of the university will be included in the committee as its third member. The committee has been mandated with making its recommendations within three months.
Tilt in balance
The move has come when the government is set to bring an Ordinance that effectively curtails the Chancellor’s powers in Vice Chancellor appointments in universities.
The Kerala State University Law Reforms Commission, chaired by N.K. Jayakumar, had recommended that three names submitted by a majority of the three-member search-cum-selection committee shall be treated as the list of shortlisted candidates to be submitted to the Chancellor. While it was expected to provide leverage for the government in the selection process, the Governor’s manoeuvre has thrown a spanner in such works by tilting the balance in favour of the Raj Bhavan. The development is likely to trigger another round of confrontation between the Governor and the State government, a few months after Kerala University had been in the vortex of a bitter tussle.
Incumbent Vice Chancellor V.P. Mahadevan Pillai’s tenure is set to come to an end in October.
