The Governor, R.N. Ravi, who is also the Chancellor of the universities, has called upon the State government to withdraw the extraordinary gazette notification it had published regarding the Vice-Chancellor search-cum-selection panel for the University of Madras.
The Governor’s office termed as void ab initio the gazette notification published by the Higher Education Department. The notification mentioned a three-member search committee while earlier the Governor had announced a four-member panel with the fourth member being a person nominated by the University Grants Commission.
The gazette notification excluded the UGC nominee’s name, pointing out that the university statutes had provided only for a three-member panel. On Tuesday, the Governor’s office issued a release stating that the notification issued by his office on September 6 had been published on the Raj Bhavan website and a press release issued. The notification was published in a Tamil and an English daily on September 12 and 13 respectively.
The Raj Bhavan release said: “By an act of impropriety, the Principal Secretary to Government, Higher Education Department, has issued a further notification of a search-cum-selection committee by excluding the nominee of the UGC Chairman and the same is published in the Government Gazette on 13.09.2023, without adhering to the decision of the honourable Supreme Court of India and in violation of the same. The notification published on 13.09.2023 is void ab initio, being contrary to the UGC Regulations and order of the Supreme Court.”
The Governor’s office said the publication in the Government gazette was “without any such authority from the Chancellor, being the head of the university and that the Principal Secretary to Government, Higher Education Department, has no role in the affairs of the University” and hence the Chancellor has called upon to withdraw the said notification published in the Tamil Nadu Government Gazette Extraordinary.”
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