V-Cs appointment: Supreme Court takes exception to Kerala Governor’s role

Taking serious exception to Kerala Governor and chancellor Rajendra Arlekar “not looking” at the Sudhanshu Dhulia committee report on the appointment of vice chancellors of two universities, the Supreme Court on Friday said it is not just an ordinary piece of paper and he is bound to take a call on it.

A bench of justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan asked the Kerala governor to take a call on the report within a week and apprise the decision to the apex court on December 5.

The top court passed the order after senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, appearing for the Kerala Government, complained that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had forwarded his recommendations for the appointment of vice chancellors for APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University and University of Digital Sciences, Innovation and Technology, based on the report of Justice Dhulia panel to the governor-cum-chancellor but no decision has been taken till now.

The bench noted that in compliance with the order dated August 18, Justice (retd) Dhulia, undertook the necessary exercise and has prepared a report accordingly.

“The report has been forwarded to the chief minister of the state. The chief minister, in turn has forwarded the report to the chancellor of the two universities.

It is expected of the chancellor to now look into the report filed by the committee headed by Justice Dhulia,” the bench ordered.

It noted that the submission of the counsel appearing for the chancellor that the report from Justice (retd) Dhulia and the chief minister has been received but not the records related to the names, which have been recommended to be the vice-chancellors.

“We fail to understand why the non-receipt of the records is coming in the way for the purpose of looking into the report filed by the committee. In such circumstances, we now expect the chancellor to take a decision in accordance with the report of the committee.

We may remind one and all that the committee was appointed with the concurrence of all the parties,” Justice Pardiwala said.

During the course of the brief hearing, the top court asked the counsel appearing for the chancellor to go out of the courtroom and seek instructions and make a statement as to when the decision can be taken.

“We want a statement to be made, how much time is needed,” the bench told the counsel. The counsel said that there are some issues, which need to be looked into.

“We are not allowing you to make any further arguments. This is not just an ordinary piece of paper.  A former judge of the Supreme Court has looked into it. This is the law of the land. So, you are bound to look into the report and take an appropriate call. We expect you to take a decision on the report. When the decision is placed before us, we will decide if the decision is right or wrong,” Justice Pardiwala said.