The Higher Education department has decided to recommend reconstitution of the Vice-Chancellor Search Committee for Anna University. The existing committee was formed on May 28 after the then Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao rejected all the three candidates selected by an earlier search committee, constituted in December 2016, with the Vice-Chancellor of Tamil Nadu Open University M. Baskaran as the chairman.
As the Chancellor of the University, Mr. Rao appointed former Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha as the chairman of the new VC search committee.
The university’s Syndicate nominated K. Anantha Padmanabhan, a former director of IIT-Kanpur who had also served as professor of eminence in Anna University, to the new committee. The government’s nominee was retired bureaucrat N. Sundaradevan.
Even as the committee began its process, the Students Federation of India (SFI) challenged Mr. Padmanabhan’s appointment terming it a violation of Anna University Act. The petition alleged that the nominee was a full-time professor with the university. Following this, Justice Lodha resigned from the committee. Though the court dismissed the case mid-September, Mr. Lodha did not withdraw his resignation.
The new norms for VC appointment that the government introduced in May stipulate that a search committee should complete the selection process within four months of being constituted. If the committee is unable to do so, either the committee could be given a maximum of two more months or a new committee could be constituted.
The present committee’s tenure ended on October 14. “With both Justice Lodha and Mr. Padmanabhan resigning from the committee, it is considered dissolved,” said Higher Education Secretary Sunil Paliwal.
Anna University, the affiliating body for 600 engineering and architecture colleges, has not had a Vice-Chancellor since May 25 last year.