After replacing university syndicate members, the Higher Education Department has now started the process of changing registrars appointed by the BJP government.
The registrar of Karnataka Sanskrit University received an order about his transfer back to Mysore University and another person was appointed in his place all of a sudden on Saturday morning. The registrar was appointed one-and-a-half years ago and his appointment order said the term was ‘3 years or until further orders’.
A week ago, the same was done with the registrar of Mysore University.
Sources in the Higher Education Department confirmed that the government has initiated the process of replacing registrars of all universities in the state. “Even the process of transferring the Tumkur University registrar is on and the order on the appointment of a new registrar will be out by Monday,” the source confirmed.
A few months ago, the removal of all the syndicate members appointed by the previous government had created a controversy. Then itself, the government had communicated to the vice-chancellors to give their choices for appointment of registrars.
As per the Karnataka State Universities Act, 2000, the state government has powers to transfer the registrars whenever there is a need as there is no specified term. “But this would be difficult in case of Bangalore University (BU), because there are two pending cases related to appointment of registrars - one by former registrar BC Mylarappa before the Supreme Court (SC) and another by current registrar KK Seethamma before the Karnataka High Court,” said an official in the Higher Education Department on condition of anonymity.
According to the official, in Mylarappa’s case, the SC issued a stay order directing not to appoint a regular registrar and to make ad-hoc arrangements till the case is disposed of. Hence, the government cannot change the registrar of BU, who has been appointed on ad-hoc basis.