All this while Governor Arif Muhammed Khan only said that the steps he had set in motion for the appointment of a new vice chancellor for the Kannur University was scuttled. He was pointing fingers at the government but did not blame anyone in particular.
Now, two letters written by Higher Education Minister R Bindu last month have been leaked to the press in which the minister asks the governor to reappoint the incumbent Gopinath Ravindran and requests him to cancel the notification he has issued to appoint a search-cum-selection committee for identifying eligible VC-material candidates.
The letters are a telling example of government interference in the administration of universities. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had earlier said that his government had not exerted any pressure on the governor. "We communicate our views to the governor but it is up to the governor to arrive at the appropriate decision," the chief minister had said.
The letters were written on November 22, a day before Gopinath Ravindran's first term was to end. One letter is a glowing recommendation of Gopinath Ravindran's performance as the Kannur University VC. "The remarkable achievements of the university in academic rating is the result of the hard work put in by the faculty and staff of the University under the able leadership of Dr Gopinath Ravindran. The NAAC has upgraded the status of the University from B to B++," the minister said in her letter to the governor.
She said that Gopinath was also instrumental in digitizing the University and amending the University statutes in line with UGC Regulations, 2018. She said Kannur University "rose to eminence as one of the prominent universities in the country under his able leadership".
She said his continuation would immensely benefit the University. She also said that there was no legal impropriety as section 10(10) of Kannur University Act allows for the reappointment of an incumbent VC for a second term and did not stipulate any restriction on age. This was for the first time that a person who was above 65 was appointed as VC of a university in Kerala.
It was then she made the request that seems to have enraged the governor: "I request your excellency to be pleased to cancel the notification dated October 27, 2021, appointing a search-cum-selection committee for identifying the person to be appointed as the VC."
In the second letter, the minister proposes Gopinath Ravindran's name as VC for a second term. She says it is her privilege as pro-vice chancellor to propose the name.
The governor evidently does not believe that Bindhu had taken the step at her own behest. "She is such a poor thing," the governor told the media in Delhi on December 12, clearly hinting that she was a mere puppet in the hands of higher powers.
On December 12, the governor said that he had reprimanded Bindu for coming to him with her nominee for Kalady Sankaracharya Sanskrit University, invoking her powers of pro-vice chancellor.
He said the minister had come to him and told him that there was a convention that the chancellor's nominee would be made the VC. "She wanted me to consider the government's candidate (for Kalady University VC) as the chancellor's nominee," he said. "I told her there was no such convention and if at all there was such a convention I want to break the convention. And then I told her that she should never ever come to me with such requests," the governor said.
