Big setback for Kerala Governor: High Court rules appointment of temporary Vice Chancellors illegal
In a significant setback for the Kerala Governor, a division bench of the Kerala High Court has rejected his appeal challenging a single bench verdict that had declared the appointment of temporary Vice Chancellors at the Digital University of Kerala and APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University legally untenable.
The High Court observed that the appointments made by Governor Rajendra Arlekar, in his capacity as Chancellor, were wrong, and directed that universities should not be run with temporary Vice Chancellors for more than six months.
The single bench had earlier ruled that VC appointments must be made based on the recommendation of the state government and that new Vice Chancellors should be selected from a panel proposed by the government. The Governor, who serves as Chancellor for most universities in the state, had challenged this as well, but the division bench upheld the original verdict and dismissed his appeal.
The division bench also ordered that there should be no delay in appointing regular VCs in the universities. Former Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan had appointed Ciza Thomas as the temporary Vice Chancellor of DUK and K. Sivaprasad as the temporary Vice Chancellor of KTU in November 2024. However, it was the current Governor, Rajendra Arlekar, who approached the division bench challenging the single bench order.
Currently, 12 out of 13 state universities in Kerala are functioning without full-time Vice Chancellors, relying instead on interim or temporary arrangements. The High Court had earlier also expressed strong concerns about the lack of regular VCs in these institutions.
Dr Mohanan Kunnummal, Vice Chancellor of the Kerala University of Health Sciences—who also holds the additional charge as Vice Chancellor of the University of Kerala—is currently the only regularly appointed VC in the universities where the Governor serves as Chancellor.
After the division bench issued its verdict rejecting the Governor’s petition, State Higher Education Minister R. Bindu said it had been proved that “the Chancellor’s measures were illegal.” She also welcomed the court’s directive that new VCs should be appointed from the panel recommended by the state government.
“Those VCs who have been appointed not because of their academic excellence but due to their allegiance to the RSS must now realize that they should not hurt the future of students for their petty interests,” she said, adding that successive Governors have been interfering in ways that affect higher education institutions that are otherwise making significant strides in NIRF rankings and NAAC accreditation.
India