Supreme Court ex-judge for VC search panel

Chennai: After dissolving the high profile vice-chancellor search panel of Anna University, the Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit has nominated Justice V.S. Sirpurkar, the former judge, Supreme Court of India, as the chairperson of the new VC search panel, according to sources.

Justice Sirpurkar has served as judge of the Madras High Court and later as Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court. In his four year tenure as a Supreme Court judge, he was part of the bench that rendered several landmark judgments including confirming a death sentence on Pakistani national Mohammed Arif in the Delhi Red Fort attack case in 2000.

The state government has retained its nominee N. Sundaradevan, a retired IAS officer. The syndicate of Anna University has selected IIT Madras professor R. Gnanamoorthy, as its nominee for the new vice-chancellor search panel.
Former Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha resigned as the chairman of the search panel following a litigation alleging violations of norms against the appointment of search panel member K. Anantha Padmanabhan. The case was dismissed.

But, after the resignations of both Justice R.M. Lodha and K. Anantha Padmanabhan, the committee was dissolved. “As per the procedure, the new search committee has to call for fresh applications and scrutinize them. Since the committee headed by a former judge of Supreme Court we can expect applications from all over India” a source said.

The premier technical university is functioning without a vice-chancellor for over year and a half following the end of the tenure of Professor M. Rajaram on May 26. The previous Governor CH.Vidyasagar Rao has rejected all the three shortlisted candidates as he was not convinced of their qualifications. After rejecting the names, he formed a new search committee headed by Justice R.M. Lodha.