Kerala CM vs Governor standoff : SC asks Justice Dhulia to recommend VC's for 2 universities

New Delhi: Following the deadlock between the Kerala chief minister and the governor, the Supreme Court directed asked a committee headed by Justice (retd) Sudhanshu Dhulia to recommend one name each for appointing vice chancellors in two technical universities.

The top court was hearing the matter related to the appointments of VCs of the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University and the University of Digital Sciences, Innovation and Technology.

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A bench comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice KV Viswanathan asked the committee to submit the names in a sealed cover by next Wednesday, and the matter will be taken up for hearing on December 18.

As the hearing commenced, Attorney General R Venkataramani told the court that there is a letter written by the chancellor to the chief minister. However, the bench declined to see the letter.

Senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, appearing for the Kerala government, informed the bench that the law minister and the higher education minister met the chancellor on December 10.

Gupta said that the chief minister's objection is only with respect to one name, and that the chancellor did not indicate any particular objection to the other names.

The court noted in its order that despite its best efforts, the deadlock continues till date and the chancellor and the chief minister have not been able to reach to any consensus for the appointment of vice chancellors in the two universities.

"It was expected that the chancellor and the CM would reach to some consensus. However unfortunately nothing has been done so far except some exchange of letters between the two.

Today, when we started hearing the matter, the AG handed over a sealed envelope containing the reply of the chancellor to the chief minister. We decline to look into the same."

"We are of the view that in such circumstances we should request the committee headed by Justice Dhulia to look into the letter of the chief minister and the reply of the chancellor and give us one composite report.

We request the committee to give us one name for each university in a sealed cover.