PIL to appoint Vice Chancellors only by merit

 

Chennai: A public interest litigation has been filed in the Madras High Court to direct the state government to select and appoint as Vice Chancellors only academicians of excellence in merit with eligibility criteria as per the University Grants Comm­ission (UGC) Reg­ulations for Periyar Uni­v­ers­ity in Salem, Bha­rat­hidasan University in­ Tiru­chirappalli and Ala­gappa University in Kar­aikudi and all other public universities in the state, by adopting a transparent selection process.

 

When the PIL from S Krishnaswamy, Convenor of TN Federation of Unive­rsities Faculty Associations came up for hearing before a division bench comprisi­­n­g Justices Chitra Ven­kat­araman and T S Sivag­na­nam, additional advocate gen­­eral P H Arvind Pan­dia­n took notice for the state government. 

 

Directing the petitioner to serve notice to the Search Committees constituted to choose VCs for the three universities and UGC, the bench posted to December 5, further hearing of the case.

 

According to R Vaigai, counsel for the petitioner, the search committees have already met once or twice and that if they were allowed to finalize names in violation of para 7.3.0 of the UGC (Minimum qualification for appointment of teachers and other academic staff in Universities and colleges and measures for the maintenance of standards in higher education) Regulations, huge damage would be caused to quality of education.  

 

In the past, several unqualified persons were appointed as VCs to top state universities. Some of the less eligible candidates, who had completed their tenures as VCs, were again in the race for a second term in any of the three universities.