NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that governors as chancellors of universities are to act independent of state governments for appointment of vice-chancellors and quashed Kannur University VC‘s reappointment, terming it as ‘unwarranted interference” by the Kerala government – a verdict which also underscored the autonomous powers conferred on the governor to conduct the affairs of a university as the chancellor.
A bench of CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra quashed the reappointment of G Ravindran as VC of Kannur University in 2021 after it found that the state had overreached its powers to reappoint its nominee even when the governor had set in motion the selection process for filling the VC post.
Justice Pardiwala said, “We have reached the conclusion that though the notification reappointing Ravindran to the post of VC was issued by the chancellor, yet the decision stood vitiated by the influence of extraneous considerations or to put it in other words by the unwarranted intervention of the state.”