Notice on petition against appointment of Law University Vice Chancellor

When the plea came up on Tuesday, Justice S M Subramaniam ordered notice to the Chancellor, Universities of Tamil Nadu; Chairman, University Grants Commission (UGC); and TNDALU vice-chancellor returnable in two weeks.

The petitioner, M K Gauthaman, an advocate at the Madras High Court, submitted that TNDALU Vice-Chancellor Suryanarayana Sastry had served as a lecturer and reader in Pondicherry University between November 1, 1988, and March 14, 2006, where he taught classes for non-law students.

Hence, for 18 years of his career, he was not connected to law discipline, which, the petitioner said, was against the principles pertaining to the selection procedure of Vice-Chancellor of a Law University.

Further, as per the UGC guidelines, the candidate should have had 20 years’ experience as a professor in a university system or 10 years of experience in an equivalent position in a research or academic organisation. But Vice Chancellor Sastry does not possess the said years of experience as a law lecturer. His selection is vitiated and hence ought to be ousted from the post, the petitioner added.

Also, noting that TNDALU is exclusively a law university established under the Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University Act, 1996, the petitioner said while such a situation is distinguishable from a multi-discipline university where the Vice Chancellor can be of any of the disciplines, the Vice Chancellor of a law university must possess sufficient attributes of law and legal education to entitle him for appointment to the post.

Based on this, the petitioner sought the court to issue a writ of quo warranto to call upon the vice chancellor of TNDALU to show under what authority of law he was holding the office.