Kochi: Governor Arif Mohammed Khan faced a setback on Tuesday as the Kerala High Court annulled his nominations to the Senate list of Kerala University due to allegations that they had political affiliations with the BJP and ABVP. The court has accepted the other nominations put forward by the university.

The single bench order directed the Governor to present a new list within the next six weeks. Governor Khan had made adjustments to the list by replacing four names from the university's suggested eight candidates with four ABVP activists. The Governor had recommended names of students from Humanities, Fine Arts, Science and Sports sections. All of them are ABVP activists. Names of experts in the different streams are usually recommended to the Senate list.

This decision by the Governor prompted the removed students – Arunima Ashok, PS Kavya, Avant Sen, and Nanda Kishore – to petition the court. The Governor justified their removal, citing their purported lack of qualifications for the list.

Meanwhile, the court questioned what additional qualifications of the Governor's nominees possessed while dismissing these four nominations.  The Governor informed the court that he used his discretion as Chancellor to select the students as there were no set parameters for the same.