Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday rejected Governor Arif Mohammed Khan’s claims that the government interfered with the re-appointment of Kannur University’s Vice Chancellor.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court criticised Khan’s order reappointing Gopinath Ravindran, stating that the Governor had previously “abdicated or surrendered” his statutory powers for reappointing the VC.
The court, while quashing the reappointment, also criticised the Left government for its “unwarranted intervention” in the matter.
Talking to media in Shoranur in this north Kerala district, Vijayan dismissed news reports suggesting that the Supreme Court’s verdict was a setback for the Kerala government, and termed them baseless.
He clarified that the apex court had affirmed that due process was followed in the reappointment. Despite this, the governor continued to claim in the media that there was external pressure, Vijayan added.
“The letter written by the ex-officio pro-chancellor — the higher education minister — was considered as unwarranted intervention of the state government. How can a correspondence between two authorities under the same law be considered external pressure,” Vijayan asked, rejecting the governor’s claim.
He said the apex court dealt with three legal issues, the first being whether re-appointment is permissible in a “tenure post”, to which the court said yes.
“It held that the outer age limit of 60 years, provided for under the 1996 Act of the University, will not apply in case of the reappointment of a VC. The apex court also said it was not necessary to follow the procedure of appointment as laid down in Section 10 of the 1996 Act for the purpose of reappointment,” Vijayan said.
The Chief Minister claimed that the legal advice from the Advocate General was received by the higher education minister’s office and handed over to Raj Bhavan.
