Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan on Wednesday stayed the appointment of KK Ragesh, CPI(M) leader and Priya Varghese, wife of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s private secretary, as associate professor in the Malayalam department of Kannur University. Norms and Prejudices.
It was alleged that Priya, wife of former Rajya Sabha member Ragesh, secured the position in the University at Kannur, leaving behind other candidates with high scores in terms of essential qualifications like teaching experience, published research work, etc. The candidates had a minimum score for eligibility to be shortlisted, but had top marks compared to the other five in the interview, which is the basis for appointment. On 13 August, reports surfaced that Priya had scored much lower than another candidate, Joseph Scaria. While Priya’s overall score was 156, Scaria scored 651.
Read also| Teacher recruitment scam: Take corrective action, says union education Minister to Mamata Banerjee
In a media release, the Raj Bhavan said that Governor Khan, as the Chancellor of the University, ‘all further proceedings as per the resolution of the Kannur University Syndicate (No.202.313 dated 27.06.2022) and the selection process…with immediate further orders. till effective. The Governor also issued a show-cause notice to the Vice-Chancellor of Kannur University, Prof. Gopinath Raveendran. He told the media that he would challenge the governor’s stay order in the court.
The decision to stay Khan’s appointment comes a day after the state cabinet ratified a draft bill that proposes to dilute the power of the governor as vice-chancellor of state universities in the appointment of a vice-chancellor. It will be tabled in the Assembly later this month. Since being appointed governor in 2019, Khan has had several face-offs with the Kerala government.
Priya explained this huge difference in scores through three social media post posts on August 15, 16 and 18, alleging that ‘this is part of a trial by the media against her for being the wife of a communist leader.’ He had said in a Facebook post on August 15 that reports that other candidates had secured more marks than him to be admitted to the post were “false”.
“Since it was the time of covid pandemic, the application for the post was submitted online. The candidate’s score will be generated automatically after filling the online datasheet. The scores (scores) that are shown as secure (in the report as a response to an RTI query by him and the other five candidates) are online generated scores. These marks are usually verified on the day of the interview. But in this case since the interview was also online, no verification was done. So scores are just claims. The university has not verified them yet,” she told in her post on August 15.
In his second post on 16 August, he clarified some of his claims in the first one. Taking a dig at the mediapersons, he said how can you celebrate ‘ma pra’ (abbreviation for media persons in Malayalam coined by the left cyber handle) when someone has written ‘goat’ then ‘dog’. Will read
On the alleged lack of teaching experience, on August 18, Priya referred to the UGC norms, “The period taken by candidates to acquire MPhil and/or PhD degree is considered as teaching/research experience for appointment to teaching posts.” will not be claimed. In addition, the period of active service spent in obtaining research degree along with teaching assignments without any leave shall be counted as teaching experience for the purpose of direct recruitment/promotion.” (sic)
A day before the extraordinary decision, the governor had reprimanded the officials of Kannur University. He said, “I am surprised to see that everyone’s opinion is being taken from the Advocate General to the UGC to the Ministry, but the Chancellor is being kept in the dark. Why am I being kept in the dark? I have institutes. Why? There must have been some reason. This is probably because they wanted to hide these things (alleged irregularities) from me,” the governor told the media.
According to him, he was “concerned” about the situation in the higher education sector in the state as there were reportedly “very serious irregularities” in the Kannur University.
According to the proposed bill, the state government will recommend the name of the governor. With this, the Governor’s hand in the appointments of VC will end. The VC selection committee consists of three members – a representative of the UGC, the University Senate and the Governor. However, he said, “whatever is proposed becomes law only after the governor’s signature.” CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyari Balakrishnan has accused the BJP of using the Kerala governor as a tool to topple the LDF government.
read the breaking news And today’s fresh news Here