BENGALURU: The High Court on Wednesday asked Governor Vajubhai Vala, the Chancellor of Universities, to submit his statement in support of the suspension of H Maheshappa as Vice-Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU).
The court also asked him to respond whether he had received the email and fax message sent by Maheshappa on March 14.
Hearing a petition filed by Maheshappa challenging his suspension, Justice Raghvendra S Chauhan asked the counsel for both parties to submit written arguments by April 7 so that he can hear the them on April 11.
Maheshappa’s counsel argued that as per the VTU Act, a vice-chancellor cannot be placed under suspension and can only be removed in a process involving the state government. The chancellor’s counsel strongly defended the suspension saying that Vala could not have sat a silent spectator after receiving complaints against Maheshappa. The chancellor has the power to take action, he argued.
Justice Chauhan observed that “the chancellor cannot act like the queen in ‘Alice in Wonderland’. A procedure should be followed even before hanging a ruthless serial killer or a dreaded dacoit. The chancellor should also follow procedure. For instance, just because he doesn’t like the tie of a staffer, he cannot suspend him.”
Justice Chauhan said the Chancellor can constitute a committee under Section 13(4)(b) of the VTU Act and take action based on the report of the committee.
However, in this case, the committee was constituted under Section 9 of the Act, wherein the governor had to send a report to the government and sought explanation from the VTU Executive Committee on the erring employee concerned but not from the vice-chancellor.
Vala’s counsel argued that the chancellor is the appointing authority and he has powers to take disciplinary action like suspension as there were allegations against the V-C.
Maheshappa challenged the governor’s action saying that he was treated as second-division clerk by Vala. He also contended that the governor is selective in approach as he failed to act against the Karnataka State Open University even though the one-man committee submitted a report.
The governor had issued the suspension order on March 14.