Kerala Assembly Passes Bill For Removing Governor As Chancellor Of Univs

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Assembly proceedings on Tuesday saw high drama as it passed the bill to replace the Governor as the Chancellor of universities in the State and appoint eminent academicians in the top post, while the opposition UDF boycotted the House over non-acceptance of its suggestions regarding the bill.

"The University Laws (Amendment) Bill is passed," Speaker A N Shamseer said.

The bill, which had undergone scrutiny by a Subject Committee of the House, was passed after hours-long discussions during which the Congress-led UDF said it was not opposed to the removal of the Governor as Chancellor.

It said that it wanted retired Supreme Court judges or former Kerala High Court chief justices to be considered for appointment at the helm of universities. The opposition also said there need not be different Chancellors for each of the universities and the selection panel should comprise the Chief Minister, Leader of Opposition (LoP) and the Kerala High Court Chief Justice.

The UDF said one Chancellor for all universities was sufficient as day-to-day activities would be handled by the respective Vice-Chancellors.

However, state Law minister P Rajeeve said that a judge cannot be a part of the selection panel and the Speaker would be a better option.

He also said the government has not decided how many Chancellors there would be, but laws of each university regarding appointment of Chancellor need to be amended.

"The number of Chancellors can be decided later," he said.

Rajeeve's suggestion regarding the selection panel was accepted by the opposition subject to the condition that retired judges are appointed as Chancellor.

The minister, however, said retired judges cannot be the sole option for being appointed at the helm of universities.

In view of the stand taken by the government, the opposition said it was boycotting the House proceedings as it feared that the state government was attempting to turn universities in Kerala into Communist or Marxist centres by appointing their favourites at the helm.