Kerala: Consensus eludes Governor and CM

New Delhi: With the Kerala governor and chief minister failing to resolve the stalemate between them over the appointment of vice chancellors to two state universities, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked a committee headed by justice Sudhanshu Dhulia (retired) to recommend one name for each university.

A bench of justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan asked the panel to make recommendations after perusing the correspondence between the CM and the governor, who is the chancellor of the universities. The committee, set up by the top court earlier to shortlist candidates for the chancellor and the chief minister to consider, has been asked to submit the two names in a sealed cover by December 17.

The development took place during the resumed hearing of a plea pertaining to the appointments of VCs to the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University and the University of Digital Sciences Innovation and Technology. At the start of the hearing, attorney general R Venkataramani said he wanted to hand over a confidential letter written by the chancellor to the CM as his reply to the letter sent by the CM regarding one of the recommendations. The bench refused to see the letter.


The counsel for the Kerala government apprised the bench that the law and higher education ministers had met the chancellor on Tuesday. The counsel said the chief minister's objection was only over one name and that the chancellor did not indicate any objection to the other names.

Keeping in view that the chancellor and CM have failed to end the deadlock, the bench directed that the justice Dhulia panel will now recommend one name each.

"Despite best efforts, the deadlock continues," the bench said. "It was expected that the chancellor and the chief minister would reach a consensus and finalise names. However, unfortunately, nothing has been done except some exchange of letters between the two," it said.