Thiruvananthapuram, August 22 (BPNS)
The Kerala High Court on Monday stayed the appointment of Priya Varghese as the associate professor at Kannur University. The stay, which will be in effect till August 31, follows after a petition was filed before the court by the second rank holder in the list, Joseph Scaria. With this, the fight between the state’s Governor and the Kannur University Vice-Chancellor (VC) has taken to a new level. Priya is the wife of KK Ragesh, who is the private secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Last week, Governor Arif Mohammad Khan, in his capacity as Chancellor of the university, stayed her appointment and issued a show-cause notice to the VC.
In his interim order, Justice Devan Ramachandran said that he deemed it appropriate to order that until the next posting date (August 31), no appointments be made from the rank list, particularly because it is shown only as a provisional one. The Judge also implead the chairman of the University Grants Commission as an additional respondent.
The petition had sought a directive to the Kannur University and its selection committee to rework the rank list for the post of associate professor at the department of Malayalam after removing Priya Varghese.
The petitioner also contended that Priya was not at all qualified for the post as she didn’t have the requisite teaching experience. However, according to the petitioner, she was interviewed and was provided with the first rank. It was said that she had the lowest research score (156) among the six shortlisted applicants but was given the top rank.
While staying her appointment, the Governor had alleged that Kannur University’s move to appoint her was “political”.
It was in November that an uproar was made against the appointment as the university allegedly ignored more qualified and meritorious candidates.
Fingers were pointed at the VC as it was alleged that he got a four-year extension of his term as a ‘reward’ for facilitating her appointment.
Later, the Save University Campaign Committee, a whistleblower in the higher education sector, took the issue and approached the Governor pointing out several politically-motivated appointments bypassing deserving candidates.
The state government has so far remained silent on the issue.
According to Higher Education Minister R Bindu, the state government has no role in making appointments in the varsities and only the universities can do that, and that too as per the law and the regulations regarding the same.
