All 10 VCs in Kerala 'fall in line', reply to Chancellor's notice

With the deadline ending at 5 p.m on Monday, all the 10 Vice Chancellors, who were asked by the Chancellor, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, to explain why they action should not be taken against them, have sent their replies.

Now, Khan, who has returned to his official residence in the state capital after a north Indian tour, will go through the replies and then take his decision.

The Governor had last week said he will only be glad to meet any VC, if they wish to do so.

This situation rose, soon after the Supreme Court, last month, set aside the appointment of the Vice Chancellor of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technological University, located in the state capital.

A bench of Justices M.R. Shah and C.T. Ravikumar had found that the search committee formed to pick the VC was not properly constituted and also that only one name was sent to the Governor as opposed to a list of names as is required as per the UGC regulations.

Latching on to it, Khan asked the Vice Chancellors of ten state Universities to reply why action should not be taken against them.

With this, the angry Pinarayi Vijayan government strongly backed these VCs and gave the nod to them to approach the Kerala High Court.

Seeing the gravity of the issue, the High Court also played their responsibility well and heard their plea on Diwali day.

After hearing the plea it held that the letter issued by the Governor, directing the VCs of all universities in Kerala to resign was no longer valid since the Governor himself later issued show cause notices to them, asking them to reply.

The court, therefore, ruled that the VCs can continue in their posts till the Governor passes a final order after following the procedure under law.

Now all eyes are on Khan on his decision, which in all likelihood will be booting out all the 10 VCs, as even the Kerala High Court ruled that the apex court guidelines will have to be followed.