Madras High Court stays amendments taking away T.N. Governor's power to appoint Vice-Chancellors
The Madras High Court on Wednesday (May 21, 2025) stayed the operation of a series of amendments carried out by the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly to make the State government, instead of the Governor, the appointing authority for Vice-Chancellors of various State-run universities.
A summer vacation Bench of Justices G.R. Swaminathan and V. Lakshminarayanan granted the interim stay pursuant to a public interest litigation petition filed by advocate Kutty alias K. Venkatachalapathy of Tirunelveli to declare all the amendment Acts as null and void.
The orders were passed after hearing senior counsel Dama Seshadri Naidu, assisted by V.R. Shanmuganathan, for the petitioner and Advocate-General P.S. Raman as well as Senior Counsel P. Wilson representing the Chief Secretary and Higher Education Secretary respectively.
Initially, the A-G as well as Mr. Wilson urged the court to grant time for filing a counter affidavit and contended that there was absolutely no urgency in taking up the stay petition for hearing during the summer vacation hearing. However, the Bench rejected their request.
The Division Bench was also informed that the State government had already filed a petition before the Supreme Court urging it to transfer the PIL petition, pending before the High Court, to itself and hear it along with connected cases already pending before the top court.
Higher Education Secretary C. Samayamoorthy too filed a memo before the High Court contending that the PIL petition was politically motivated as it had been filed by a person who was the Tirunelveli district secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and an advocate by profession.
Though the petitioner had challenged the State laws on 56 grounds, his primary contention was that the laws were repugnant to Regulation 7.3 of the University Grants Commission Regulations on Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers and Other Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges, 2018.
Stating the validity of Regulation 7.3 was in itself a subject matter of the litigations pending before the Supreme Court for quite sometime now, the Secretary said it would only be appropriate to transfer the present PIL petition to the top court and tag it along with the cases pending there.
The memo also stated that a mention was made before a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) B.R. Gavai on May 19, 2025, seeking early listing of the transfer petition and that the CJI had orally asked the counsel for the State government to inform the High Court about the transfer petition.
The Higher Education Secretary further stated there was no grave urgency involved in the case for the High Court to hear the matter during summer vacation, without providing sufficient time for the State government to file a detailed counter affidavit, meeting out all 56 grounds.
He urged the Division Bench led by Justice Swaminathan to defer the hearing on the PIL petition until the disposal of the transfer petition filed before the Supreme Court.
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