THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Governor and chancellor Arif Mohammed Khan has directed universities to recoup from various vice-chancellors Rs 1.13 cr they spent for challenging his orders in courts using varsity funds.
Khan said in his directive that varsity bodies should not, in future also, sanction funds for taking legal proceedings against chancellor or the university as such cases are filed on “personal interests”.
VCs had spent varsity funds to challenge the chancellor’s order disqualifying them for lapses in their selection process.
These include former VCs Gopinath Ravindran (Kannur University), Riji John (Kufos), M S Rajashree (KTU), K N Madhusoodhanan (Cusat), V Anilkumar (Malayalam University), Mubarak Pasha (Narayana Guru Open University) and Calicut University VC M K Jayaraj.TNN |
Governor deals VCs a telling blow
In a major blow to vice-chancellors – most of whom retired – who had challenged chancellor’s orders in courts using university funds, governor Arif Mohammed Khan has directed varsities to recoup from them the amount, Rs 1.13cr, they had spent for legal fight.
The order was issued after the Save University Campaign Committee brought the details of the spending revealed by higher education minister R Bindu in the assembly to the attention of Khan.
The governor’s office asked the universities to recover the money from the vice-chancellors and report the receipt of the same to the governor, who is also the chancellor of universities.
Many vice-chancellors who have already retired from service had spent huge sums of money to challenge the chancellor’s order disqualifying them for lapses in their selection process and appointment.
The governor, in his directive, told the universities that the varsity bodies should not, in future either, sanction funds for taking legal proceedings against the chancellor or the university as such cases were filed and followed up for the benefit of the VCs’ personal interests.
University funds should not be used for such personal spending, it said.
The minister had also informed the House that Kannur university had spent Rs 8 lakh to fight the case against the appointment of Priya Varghese, wife of CPM leader and chief minister’s private secretary K K Ragesh.
The varsity has not sanctioned funds for the special leave petition pending before the Supreme Court in this regard. The vice-chancellors and Varghese had filed petitions in the high court and apex court through senior advocates.
Though Kerala University former vice-chancellor Mahadevan Pillai, MG University VC Sabu Thomas and Digital University VC Saji Gopinath had also filed petitions, there was no mention about the use of university funds by them in the details made available in the assembly.
