Why did Madras High Court stay laws taking away T.N. Governor's power to appoint Vice-Chancellors?
The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly passed a series of Bills for amending the laws applicable to various State-run universities. The primary aim of the amendments was to transfer from the Governor (in his/her capacity as the Chancellor) to the State government, the power to appoint Vice Chancellors to those universities. When the Governor sat over the Bills, without granting assent, for long, the State government approached the Supreme Court and obtained an order on April 8, 2025. Taking serious note of the enormous delay in grant of assent, the top court ordered that the Bills would be deemed to have been granted assent. By virtue of the Supreme Court's order, the amendment Bills became Acts.
Subsequently, Kutty alias K. Venkatachalapathy, an advocate based in Tirunelveli, filed a public interest litigation petition before the Madras High Court on May 12, 2025, challenging the constitutional validity of those amendment Acts. A summer vacation Bench of Justices G.R. Swaminathan and V. Lakshminarayanan entertained the PIL petition and passed an interim order on May 21, 2025. The Bench stayed the operation of the amendment Acts to the extent to which they take away the power of appointment of Vice Chancellors from the hands of the Chancellor and vest the same in the State government.
What is the reasoning given by the Division Bench for staying the amended laws?
Authoring the verdict for the Division Bench, Justice Swaminathan pointed out that the amendment Acts do not make any change to the position of the Governor being the Chancellor of State universities. They only take away the Chancellor's power to appoint Vice Chancellors to the Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University, Anna University, Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and so on.
The Bench found the amendment Acts to be 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. It pointed out that the UGC Regulations clearly state that only the Visitor/Chancellor could appoint a Vice Chancellor from among names recommended by a search-cum-selection committee and therefore, the amendment Acts conferring such a power on the State government, instead of the Governor, were directly in conflict with 2018 Regulations.
Can UGC Regulations prevail over State Acts?
The Division Bench said, the Supreme Court had already confirmed the primacy of the UGC Regulations over the State laws. In Gambhirdhan K. Gadhvi versus State of Gujarat (2022), the top court had said: 'It cannot be disputed that the UGC Regulations are enacted by the UGC in exercise of powers under Sections 26(1)(e) and 26(1)(g) of the UGC Act, 1956. Even as per the UGC Act every rule and regulation made under the said Act, shall be laid before each House of Parliament. Therefore, being a subordinate legislation, UGC Regulations become part of the Act.'
A Bench of Justices M.R. Shah and B.V. Nagaratna of the Supreme Court had also observed: 'In case of any conflict between the State legislation and the Central legislation, the Central legislation shall prevail by applying the rule/principle of repugnancy as enunciated in Article 254 of the Constitution as the subject 'education' is in the Concurrent List (List III) of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution. Therefore, any appointment as a Vice-Chancellor contrary to the provisions of the UGC Regulations can be said to be in violation of the statutory provisions, warranting a writ of quo warranto.'
The ruling was subsequently followed by former Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli in State of West Bengal versus Anindya Sundar Das wherein they wrote: 'In view of the decision in Gambhirdan K. Gadhvi, even if the provisions of the Act allowed the appointment of the Vice Chancellor by the State Government, it would be in violation of the UGC Regulations. The Regulations become part of the statute framed by Parliament and will prevail.'
After citing two more Supreme Court verdicts on the same lines, the Division Bench led by Justice Swaminathan said: 'When repugnancy between the impugned amendment Acts and the UGC Regulation is obvious and admitted, it is our judicial duty to apply the law declared by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in as many as four recent decisions.'
Do courts have power to stay the operation of Acts?
On the next question as to whether a court could stay the operation of laws passed by the legislature, Justice Swaminathan said, the answer lay in Supreme Court's 2021 decision in Dr. Jaishri Laxmanrao Patil versus State of Maharashtra. In that judgement, the Supreme Court had said: 'Normally an interim order is not passed to stultify statutory provisions. However, there is no absolute rule to restrain interim orders being passed when an enactment is ex facie unconstitutional or contrary to the law laid down by this Court.'
Justice Swaminathan also recalled that the Supreme Court itself had on January 12, 2021 stayed the operation of the three farm laws, passed by the Parliament, which led to a national outcry. 'Interestingly, Shri P.Wilson (senior counsel representing the Tamil Nadu Higher Education department in the present PIL petition), who is now opposing the grant of interim relief was the counsel for a set of petitioners therein and welcomed the proposal to stay the implementation of the farm laws,' the judge wrote.
Can a summer vacation bench pass such orders?
Though Advocate General P.S. Raman as well as Mr. Wilson had urged the Division Bench to grant suffiicient time for the State government to file its counter affidavit and not take up the stay application for hearing during summer vacation sitting, the Division Bench rejected their plea.
'It is true that the High Court is on vacation and that we are sitting as Vacation Bench Judges. To us, it should not make any difference. The Hon'ble Chief Justice of India has observed that court vacation sittings should be rechristened 'partial working days'. We take inspiration from the said observation. Judges can be on vacation, courts should not be on vacation. Access to justice should always be available. When an advocate complains that an unconstitutional legislation has been passed, we cannot shut our eyes. That is why we propose to intervene then and there,' the Bench said.
Pointing out that they had granted a week's time for the State to file its written response, the Bench observed: 'The unconstitutionality and repugnancy vitiating the impugned (under challenge) amendment Acts is so glaring and obvious that we cannot shut our eyes. We are convinced that the impugned amendments are ex-facie unconstitutional. If an unconstitutional process is allowed to proceed, it would cause irreparable injury and public interest would suffer.'
Does the High Court order amount to reviewing Supreme Court's verdict in Governor's assent case?
The Division Bench, further, took strong exception to an argument that the High Court's interference with the amendment Acts would virtually amount to reviewing Supreme Court's April 8, 2025 verdict in Governor's assent case. 'Shri P.Wilson made a preposterous submission that we were virtually reviewing the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court rendered in State of Tamil Nadu versus The Governor of Tamil Nadu. No submission can be more outrageous than this. We are mindful of our position. We know that we have to give the highest respect to any decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court. We do not need lectures from Shri P.Wilson on this score. We believe in judicial discipline. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the said decision was not concerned with the constitutionality of the impugned provisions.'
The Bench went on to state: 'When the learned Advocate General at one point claimed that the petitioner's Senior Counsel is merely reiterating the contentions advanced in the said decision (April 8, 2025 ruling), we called upon the learned Advocate General to draw our attention to the relevant paragraphs, where the contentions now advanced stood rejected. The learned Advocate General made a vain attempt and subsequently gave up this objection altogether.'
'When we notice that the impugned amending Acts fall foul of the law laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, we are unable to mechanically adjourn the proceedings. It is this primary consideration that impels us to grant interim relief,' the Bench concluded.
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