PIL against committee delays VC's appointment

BENGALURU: The appointment of the vice-chancellor to the

Bangalore University

may face further delay as the meeting scheduled by the search committee has been indefinitely postponed. M Muniraju is functioning as the in-charge vice-chancellor after B

Thimme Gowda

completed his term as the VC.

The committee constituted to select the new VC--more than 100 applications have already come--was expected to meet on April 19 and 20. However, sources in the university said the meeting has been postponed after the matter was brought before the high court through a public interest litigation (PIL).

On April 17, a PIL was filed by Shrinivas B V, contesting that the search panel constituted by the state government was in violation of the Karnataka State Universities Act. The petitioner said three of the four panellists are connected with the university which is in violation of the norm that the committee members shall not be connected with the affairs of the government, university or any college or institution affil iated to the university. The petitioner has said three of the members-Gulbarga

University VC S R Niranjan

who is heading the panel, Central University of Haryana VC Prof RC Kuhad and former VC of

Davanagere University

(currently working at the

University of Mysore

) S Indumati are connected with the affairs of the university here.

The fourth panellist, S Ramananda Shetty, VC, Nitte University, Mangaluru, and former VC of Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), was appointed by the BU syndicate.

Sources in the university said the PIL is a deliberate attempt to delay the appointment of the VC. “The practice of selecting a sitting VC as the panellist has been going on for a long time and there's nothing unconstitutional,“ they said. The search committee members were appointed through a notification on January 18 this year.The committee would recommend a panel of three eminent educationists to the governor who would choose one of them as the VC.