Tambaram: Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi on Tuesday said that the Tamil Nadu government had no authority to constitute a committee to select the Vice-Chancellor for the University of Madras without the approval of the Governor.
He called for the withdrawal of the committee and said that it was in violation of a Supreme Court order.
The DMK-led Tamil Nadu government had issued a gazette notification, appointing a search-cum-selection committee to appoint the Vice Chancellor for the University of Madras.
However, the name of University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman HCS Rathore as nominee was omitted from this notification.
Raising objection to this, Governor RN Ravi issued a statement seeking the withdrawal of the state-appointed panel. “The said notification published on September 13 is contrary to the UGC regulations and order of the Supreme Court,” the statement read.
The Tamil Nadu Governor also said that the Principal Secretary and the state’s Higher Education department had “no role” in the affairs of the university.
“The said publication in the Government gazette is without any such authority from the Chancellor. Hence, the Chancellor has called upon to withdraw the said notification published in the Tamil Nadu Government Gazette,” the statement read.
On September 6, RN Ravi issued three notifications appointing a search-cum-selection committee to appoint VCs to University of Madras, Bharthiar University and Tamil Nadu Teacher Education University.
This, however, irked the DMK government as the Governor had included the names of a UGC chairman nominee in all the three committees. Furthermore, the state government also objected to the Governor constituting such committees unilaterally.
Therefore, when the government published the gazette notification regarding the search-cum-selection committee for the University of Madras on September 13, the the name of the UGC Chairman nominee, Professor HCS Rathore, was dropped.
