The Supreme Court on Thursday put to rest months of confusion on filling the post of two state-owned universities in Kerala, with a hope that any future conflict between constitutional powers would be minimized through a dialogue in the greater interests of the country.
A petition filed by Kerala Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar in a bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and K V Viswanathan was concerned with the longstanding stalemate in appointing the VC to APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University and Kerala University of Digital Sciences, Innovation and Technology. The court noted that it is always the students, teachers, parents, and staff that are affected in such institutional standoffs.
The main issue to us has been that universities should have a permanent leadership to ensure that they protect the interests of all the parties involved. The bench added that an institution cannot run smoothly without regular vice-chancellor who is very important in the running of the institution.
The attorney general R Venkataramani, who is representing the governor as the chancellor of the two universities, told the court that now the appointments had been completed and there was a unanimity between both parties about the candidates. He further said that the governor chose to have a direct meeting with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in order to overcome the stalemate, which later resulted in the resolution.
Advocate general of the Kerala government senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, and state counsel C K Sasi, credited the intervention of the apex court and said that the breakthrough could have been impossible without its intervention.
The Supreme Court had earlier formed a search-cum-selection committee that was led by former Supreme Court judge, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia to suggest panels of names to the two universities. As the committee gave out its recommendations, there were still disagreements especially in the appointment to the Kerala Digital University and thus leading to a resurgence of the matter to be referred to the committee so that it can consider ways of resolving the issue.
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