The South India Times
(Spcl Correspondent)
The Kerala High Court on Monday quashed the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor of Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS), Dr. K. Riji John. The division bench consisting of Chief Justice S. Manikumar and Justice Shaji P. Chaly said that the constitution of the selection committee and its recommendation in John’s case was illegal. The verdict was passed on a petition challenging John’s appointment.
John is also one of the nine VCs who was recently asked by the Governor, the Chancellor of the Universities, to tender their resignations on the ground that their appointments were allegedly illegal. The Chancellor had referred to the recent decision of the Supreme Court, which set aside the appointment of Dr MS Rajashree as the VC of the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University on the ground that the Search Committee forwarded only one name to the Chancellor instead of a panel of three to five names.
The Court observed that UGC norms were violated in John’s appointment, and has directed the Chancellor to initiate a fresh process for the appointment of a new Vice-Chancellor by the UGC Regulations. Shouldn’t it be an eye-opener to all those Opposition-led governments which are undermining the Constitutional post, that’s Governor, in a bid to strike a balance and protect the spirit of the federal structure? Who is destroying the Constitutional bodies – the Opposition or the party in power at the Centre?
This unsavory confrontation between the Raj Bhavan and state secretariats is not new. It is no secret that the democratically elected government in a state always looks at the Raj Bhavan with suspicion. Why? Simply, because the party in power at the Centre in the past, especially during the Congress rule at the Centre, indeed ‘used and misused’ this Constitutional body to destabilize the elected governments, that too which might have won with a wafer-thin majority.
And, this tradition has begun with the dismissal of an elected government in either Kerala or J&K by none other than the so-called ‘modern India architect’ and first independent India’s Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. It was Nehru as Prime Minister has dismissed the Namboodipad-led Communist government in 1959 invoking the controversial Article 356 of the Indian Constitution, which later became known as The Liberation Struggle. The State of Kerala was formed on 1 November 1956 as per the States Reorganisation Act of 1956. Before that, the same Nehru government had also dismissed the Sheikh Abdullah government in Jammu and Kashmir in 1948, soon after independence.
In all as the Congress government has revoked article 356 to dismiss democratically elected governments during the last six-decade-long its rule at the Centre. And the recent one was in 1984, when the controversial erstwhile undivided Andhra Pradesh Governor Ram Lal, who arbitrarily dismissed the democratically elected the TDP government headed by NT Ramarao.
In sharp contrast, the BJP-headed NDA government at the Centre has not invoked Art 356 to clamp President’s rule in any of the states. Yet, the Opposition ruled states like Kerala, TN, Rajasthan, and Telangana, besides a couple of union territories, including Delhi cry foul and opt to confront all and sundry issues whenever Raj Bhavans raise objections against untenable anti-people initiatives. In one such incident, the Delhi government of Arvind Kejriwal forced the Lt Governor to knock on the doors of the apex court. It’s time for the Opposition, including Congress, to do some introspection, under whose rule at the Centre has destroyed Constitutional bodies. Not to forget the dark days of Emergency as well the apex court’s most nasty comment ‘Cage Parrot’ as far as the CBI is concerned.
