Kerala Governor, Chief Minister lock horns over selection of Vice-Chancellors

The rift between Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Governor Rajendra Arlekar widened further on Friday with Mr. Vijayan accusing Mr. Arlekar of blatantly violating the Supreme Court (SC) directive regarding the appointment of Vice-Chancellors.

Interacting with mediapersons on the day, the Chief Minister wondered how the Governor dared to violate the apex court’s directive regarding the appointment of V-Cs to the A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU) and the Kerala University of Digital Sciences, Innovation, and Technology. The response of Mr. Vijayan came against the backdrop of Mr. Arlekar conveying to the apex court his preference for appointing Ciza Thomas and Priya Chandran as Vice-Chancellors of the technological and digital universities, overlooking the objection of Mr. Vijayan regarding Ms. Thomas.

Priority list

The State government followed the SC’s instruction to give its priority list of candidates for the post, and the Governor was supposed to pick them from the list. However, the Governor appeared not to have considered the priority list and even went to the extent of picking a candidate whom the Chief Minister had found ineligible for the post, he said.

Meanwhile, sources close to the Governor said that the Chief Minister’s comments on the issue stemmed from his ignorance about the Supreme Court order regarding the appointment of V-Cs.

Responding to Mr. Vijayan’s allegation that the Governor had defied the apex court directives, the Lok Bhavan maintained that the Governor acted in accordance with the court order in letter and spirit. Either the Chief Minister must have been wrongly briefed about the court directive, or he was in the dark about what the court said. It could also be a case of the Chief Minister conveniently twisting the facts, they alleged.

The Supreme Court had clearly directed that the Chancellor was free to have his reservations about the candidates recommended by the Chief Minister for appointment as V-Cs. The court had even earlier stated it would intervene in the matter if a consensus was not reached between the Chancellor and the Chief Minister, sources said.