THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The move by the Kannur University syndicate to engage a senior counsel of Supreme Court to appear in the case challenging the re-appointment of Gopinath Ravindran as vice chancellor of the varsity has courted controversy.
The Save University Campaign Committee, a whistleblowers’ collective in the higher education sector, has approached the governor (chancellor) with a petition that spending university funds for a case, in which Ravindran is a respondent in his personal capacity, amounts to abuse of power.
The syndicate of the university had recently resolved to appoint a senior advocate of the apex court to represent the vice chancellor and the registrar in the case. The special leave petition in the Supreme Court had challenged the appointment of Ravindran as vice chancellor, flouting statutory provisions.
“It is highly inappropriate for the syndicate, chaired by the vice chancellor Gopinath Ravindran himself, to engage a senior counsel at public expense to fight a case against his very appointment,” the petition pointed out. The save university campaign committee urged the governor to nullify the syndicate resolution and disallow the engagement of a senior counsel.
The appeal filed in the Supreme Court is against the Kerala High Court’s verdict in February in the vice chancellor re-appointment case. A division bench of the High Court had dismissed an appeal against the single judge order, upholding the re-appointment of Ravindran as vice chancellor. The petitioners had contended before the single judge that a person can hold office of vice chancellor only till the age of 60 years and Ravindran was above the age limit at the time of his second appointment.
