In an extraordinary move, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, in his capacity as Chancellor, on Saturday, removed 15 members from the Senate of the Kerala University.
All these Senate members, whose membership has been withdrawn, are the Chancellor’s nominees.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 governor has asked the University for a report including the names of the absentees in the Senate meeting. On receiving this, he resorted to the rarely used measure of ‘removing of members from the Senate.‘
On Saturday, 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.
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 initiated 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 the Kerala University will end on 24 October.