On Thursday, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan defended his appointment of two new vice-chancellors on an interim basis till permanent appointments are done saying he had followed rules.
The appointments came in for strong attack from State Higher Education Minister R.Bindhu who said they were not valid and the appropriate action was being considered against the process adopted.
Governor Khan told the reporters who asked him about the appointments, "Please read the rules and I have done my duty according to the rules vested with the Chancellor".
"I am not going to reply to the statement of the Minister as all are entitled to their views. I did the appointment based on the latest directive from the judiciary," added the Governor.
On Wednesday, Khan appointed new vice-chancellors for Digital University Kerala (DUK) and the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU).
Ciza Thomas, former vice-chancellor of KTU was appointed as the VC of the digital varsity, while K. Sivaprasad, Professor, Department of Ship Technology, Cusat, was made the vice chancellor of KTU until further orders.
For some time, there was lull in the frequent skirmishes between Governor Khan and the Kerala government but things got pretty hot recently.
The Vijayan government had given a list and Khan made these two fresh appointments outside of that list. Now it's raised the hackles of the government.
The new VC appointments were necessitated as last month the term of DUK Vice Chancellor Saji Gopinath, who is also the VC in charge of KTU, ended.
Incidentally, Ciza, who has retired, had run into trouble after she displeased the state government when she took over as the VC of KTU a few years back, much against the wishes of the Vijayan government.
On Thursday, just days after assuming charge in her new role, she said, I am happy that, unlike my previous experience when I came under severe duress from protesting (pro-Left) staff organisation, this time it was incident-free,".
But at the KTU, there was a protest when Sivaprasad came to take over the new post. He said, "These things (protests) will happen, but that doesn't mean I cannot take over. I have joined."
Now it remains to be seen if Bindhu will take the lead to appeal against appointments made by the Governor.
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