Kerala Governor tells Supreme Court consensus reached on appointment of two Vice Chancellors

The Kerala Governor, who is also the Chancellor of universities in the state, has informed the Supreme Court that the Chancellor and the state government have reached a consensus on the appointment of Vice Chancellors (VCs) to two universities.

The Governor has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that a consensus has been reached on appointing Vice Chancellors to APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU) and Digital University Kerala (DUK).

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Copies of the orders appointing Ciza Thomas as VC of APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University and Saji Gopinath as VC of Digital University Kerala have been attached along with the affidavit.

The affidavit states that the agreement was reached during the Governor–Chief Minister meeting held on the 14th of this month. It further notes that Justice Dhulia was informed of the decision as per the court’s instructions.

Earlier on Wednesday, after a months-long standoff, Governor Rajendra Arlekar and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan finally reached a consensus on the appointment of Vice Chancellors to the two universities. Following this, the Governor’s Secretariat issued orders appointing Ciza Thomas as VC of KTU and Saji Gopinath as VC of DUK.

Ciza Thomas and Saji Gopinath were the candidates preferred by the Governor and the state government, respectively. The breakthrough comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent directive to the Dhulia Committee to make the selections independently.

In the midst of the Governor–government standoff, the Supreme Court had constituted search-cum-selection committees headed by Justice (Retd.) Sudhanshu Dhulia to shortlist VC candidates. As per the court’s directive, the committee was required to shortlist four or five names for each university, after which the Chief Minister was to recommend them in order of preference.

However, the Governor did not accept the names recommended by the Chief Minister — C Sathish Kumar for KTU and Saji Gopinath for DUK. The Governor’s preferred candidates were Ciza Thomas and Priya Chandran.

On December 11, the Supreme Court reviewed the developments and directed the Dhulia Committee to submit a final recommendation. The committee was instructed to consider both the Chief Minister’s letter and the Governor’s reply, and to select one final name for each university. The court asked the panel to submit its report on December 17 so the matter could be heard the following day.

As both sides grew wary of the committee’s possible selections, they agreed to arrive at a consensus. The final decision was reached at a meeting between the Chief Minister and the Governor at Lok Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday.