Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Wednesday warned the Telangana government that it will stop fresh appointments of vice chancellors, if the government dodges in replying to charges of politicising appointments in varsities.
The bench of Acting Chief Justice Dilip B Bhosale and Justice P Naveen Rao was dealing with a public interest petition filed by D Manohar Rao, a retired professor of Osmania University, who said that the state was amending various university Acts to take away the autonomy of varsities in choosing their VCs.
Petitioner's counsel S Sriram said the governor of the state used to be the chancellor for the varsities earlier. He was given liberty to pick up the best academic brains as VCs, he said. Now the state, with an intention to infuse politics into universities, has relieved the governor of the task and wants to appoint its own man as chancellor who will in turn appoint VCs, Sriram said.
The state has amended the AP Universities Act, Rajiv Gandhi IIT Act, BR Ambedkar Open University Act etc. Through these amendments, the state has removed the chancellor's power to appoint a vice-chancellor. "There are no guidelines as to who would qualify to be a chancellor. State is brining amendments to university Acts through executive orders by ignoring the legislative route and is planning to bring in its own men from the secretariat as VCs. In fact, already several IAS officers are currently officiating as in-charge VCs," Sriram said.
When the bench sought to know from the state as to why it did not file its counter, despite assuring the bench in the last hearing to do so by now, the government counsel Mahender Reddy sought some more time to file the counter.
"You cannot take time like this," Justice Bhosale said, expressing a doubt whether authorities are proceeding with the process of appointments. The bench which earlier said that all such appointments would be made subject to the outcome of this plea, said on Wednesday, that it intends to modify that order now. However, upon a request from the state counsel, it gave one final chance to the authorities to file their counter.
Stay updated with the latest news on Times of India. Don't miss daily games like Crossword, Sudoku, and Mini Crossword.