Kerala Cabinet to bring ordinance seeking removal of Arif Mohammad Khan as Chancellor

The Kerala cabinet has decided to bring in an ordinance to remove Governor Arif Mohammad Khan from the post of Chancellor, news reports said on Wednesday. The Cabinet reportedly seeks to bring an expert in place of the Chancellor.

"Kerala govt intends to replace Governor as varsities' Chancellor through ordinance," said Minister R Bindu.

The Kerala High Court recently extended the date for university vice-chancellors to send their replies to the chancellor's show cause notice issued by the Kerala Governor. Seven Vice Chancellors approached the High Court against the show-cause notice issued by the Kerala Governor who is also the Chancellor of Universities, seeking to cancel the notice and contending that it is illegal.


In the plea, the VCs demanded the cancellation of the show cause notice.

Khan on October 24 had served show cause notices to Vice Chancellors (VCs) of nine universities and asked them to explain why their appointment should not be declared illegal. The Governor alleged the violation of University Grants Commission (UGC) norms in the appointment process.

The Governor had also appointed Ciza Thomas as Vice Chancellor in-charge of the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU) in Thiruvananthapuram.

Meanwhile, CM Pinarayi Vijayan government had requested the High Court to stay the appointment that was ordered by Kerala Governor Arif Muhammad Khan, chancellor of the state universities. However, the court on Tuesday declined to stay the appointment.

The Supreme Court in October sacked Dr Rajasree MS from the Vice Chancellor post citing a violation of UGC norms.

A bench of justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar allowed the appeal filed by Professor Sreejith P.S. challenging the Kerala High Court order dated August 2, 2021.

As per the UGC Regulations also, the Visitor/Chancellor shall appoint the Vice Chancellor out of the panel of names recommended by the Search Committee. Therefore, when only one name was recommended and the panel of names was not recommended, the Chancellor had no option to consider the names of the other candidates, the top court observed.

Therefore, the appointment of the respondent Rajasree can be said to be dehors and/or contrary to the provisions of the UGC Regulations as well as even to the University Act, 2015, the top court noted.

(With input from agencies)