According To UGC, The Appointment Of VCs In Breach Of Its Standards Is "Not Valid."

The chairman of UGC, Mamidala Jagadesh, expressed disapproval of the search and selection committee set up by the Tamil Nadu government to choose the vice-chancellors for the University of Madras on Wednesday, stating that "appointment of the VC of a university in violation of the UGC regulations is not valid."

"UGC has maintained a consistent stance on this matter. A panel of three to five people suggested by a search committee should properly identify candidates for the position of VC before making their recommendations. For the selection of vice-chancellors of public, private, and deemed-to-be universities, the chairman of the UGC must nominate one member of the search committee-selection committee. The UGC regulations must be followed when a vice chancellor of a university is appointed, according to Mamidala. 

Mamidala's comments follow the Tamil Nadu government's decision to exclude Prof. HCS Rathore, the UGC chairperson nominee, from the search and selection committee for the vice chancellor of the University of Madras. The government's published gazette announcement left out the name.

In September, the West Bengal government also petitioned the Supreme Court, claiming that neither the governor nor the UGC had responded to their request for a candidate to be submitted to the search-cum-selection committee for the appointment of vice-chancellors. After the governor immediately selected the VC for state-run universities, the administration made its appeal. Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, had criticised the decision, saying that the VCs should be chosen from the names provided by the five-member search committee that the state government had constituted.