PIL challenges appointment of VTU VC, High Court to hear on maintainability

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed challenging the appointment of S Vidyashankar as the vice-chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), Belagavi.

A division bench, headed by Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale, has posted the matter to December 2, 2022, to hear on the maintainability of the petition as the issue falls within service jurisprudence.

The petition is filed by Prof B Shivaraj, former acting vice-chancellor of Mysore university. The petitioner claimed that the appointment of Vidyashankar is in violation of the University Grants Commission (UGC) Regulations; (UGC Regulations on Minimum qualification for appointment of teachers, and other academic staff in the Universities and Colleges and Measures for the maintenance of standards in Higher Education Regulations 2018).

Vidyashankar was appointed as vice-chancellor of VTU on September 29, 2022.

According to the petitioner, the search committee did not consist of a nominee of the UGC as required under the 2018 regulations, and the committee is illegal because it consists of two members who are associated with the VTU.

The petitioner stated that these two members are sitting members of the academic senate and executive council of the VTU, respectively.

The petition stated that Section 13 of the VTU Act requires that a person for the post of vice-chancellor must be a person of outstanding merit in the field of engineering/technology/education.

“A candidate who had to take repeated attempts due to the poor performance in the BE degree examination and the one who failed in several subjects during his graduation, cannot be treated as a person of outstanding merit,” the petition said, claiming that Vidyashankar was able to clear his BE degree course after repeated attempts.