In an unprecedented move, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan on Wednesday issued orders sacking 15 members from the Kerala University Senate.

The Raj Bhavan on Wednesday issued orders withdrawing 15 members from the Kerala university Senate. The action came as the university refused to issue notification, sacking 15 members, whose membership in the Senate has been withdrawn by the chancellor.

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Governor Khan, in his capacity as chancellor of the university has on Wednesday given an ultimatum to the vice chancellor of the university to issue orders sacking the 15 Senate members, who are nominated by the chancellor and  whose membership has been withdrawn by him, today itself. However, the vice chancellor Mahadevan Pillai rejected the ultimatum of the governor. Following this, in an extraordinary move Raj Bhavan itself issued orders sacking the 15 members from the Senate and Gazette notification to this effect was also issued. Copies of the order have also been sent to the vice chancellor and members of the Senate.

Earlier, the university vice-chancellor PV Mahadevan Pillai informed the Governor, who is also the chancellor of the university that there are some illegalities in his action in removing the Senate  members  and asked the chancellor to reconsider the decision to sack the Senate members.

Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, in his capacity as Chancellor of the university, on Saturday, removed 15 members from the Senate  of  the Kerala University. The governor wrote a letter to the Kerala University vice chancellor declaring that the  15 members, who are nominees of the chancellor, are  ineligible to continue as senate members. Among the 15, five are syndicate members.

All these Senate members, whose membership has been withdrawn, are the Chancellor’s nominees.  They abstained from the Senate meeting held on Friday to nominate a representative to the search committee   to select the Vice Chancellor for the university . Due to their abstention, the  Senate meeting was adjourned  for  lack of quorum. Following this, the governor came up with  the extraordinary move.

The Chancellor has powers to withdraw the representatives nominated by him from the Senate, if their functioning is not satisfactory.

Raj Bhavan sources said the Governor has taken this extraordinary move, as his repeated directions to hold a Senate meeting and provide a nominee of the senate to  the  search committee  for selection  of Vice Chancellor went unheeded. The period of the present Vice Chancellor of Kerala University will end on 24 October.