Tamil Nadu sets ball rolling for appointment of VCs; asks search panels to report to govt, not governor

Chennai: Armed with the Supreme Court order, the Tamil Nadu government has set the ball rolling by reviving search panels for selection of Vice-Chancellors for nine state-funded universities out of 11 which have been functioning headless for the past one year due to persistent differences between Governor R N Ravi and the DMK dispensation.

The state government has also asked the search committee to submit their recommendations to the Higher Education Department, not to the Governor-Chancellor, as has been the practice so far.

This marks a significant shift in the functioning of 22 state-funded universities in the state – the past month saw VCs staying away from a conference convened by Governor R N Ravi in his capacity as the Chancellor and the state government asking VCs not to take orders from the Raj Bhavan.

The government separately issued notifications reviving the search panels constituted to choose VCs for Anna University, Annamalai University, Madurai Kamaraj University, and Tamil Nadu Teachers Education University on May 13. It had issued similar notifications for Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, Tamil University, and Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University in the past month, while reviving panels for Bharathidasan University and Bharathiar University as well.

“We have instructed the panels to submit their recommendations to the state government, not to the governor,” a senior official told DH. Of the 22 universities that the state government runs, 11 of them are without VCs and they are likely to get replacements by August this year.

The universities continued to remain headless due to differences between the Tamil Nadu government and the Governor over the composition of the search panel. While the government insisted that three members were enough, the governor wanted a nominee of the University Grants Commission (UGC) as the fourth member.

After the Supreme Court order which transferred the powers of appointing the VCs to the government from the governor, the DMK dispensation told the heads of state-run universities that they should take instructions only from the government.

The government has also told the VCs that they can’t cite dual control to not follow instructions from the government. Earlier, the Governor’s office had issued direct instructions to them on a host of issues which led to some varsities ignoring the government.