T.N. legislature fully empowered to take away power to appoint Vice-Chancellors from Governor: State tells Madras High Court

It was the State legislature which had enacted laws empowering the Governor, in his/her capacity as Chancellor, to appoint vice-chancellors to various State-run universities and hence, the same legislature is fully entitled to amend those laws and make the government as the appointing authority, the Tamil Nadu government has argued before the Madras High Court.

The submission was made in a counter affidavit filed before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan by Higher Education Secretary P. Shankar. The counter was filed in response to a 2025 writ petition that had challenged the validity of nine amendment Acts passed by the Assembly with respect to various universities.

Advocate General P.S. Raman and senior counsel P. Wilson told the Bench that the High Court had on May 21, 2025 stayed the operation of the nine amendment Acts to the extent to which the provisions take away the power of the Governor to appoint vice-chancellors. However, the Supreme Court had on February 4, 2026 set aside the interim order of the High Court.

Since the main case had to be argued at length at present, the A-G requested the court to fix a date sometime during the month of June. However, when the petitioner’s counsel insisted on a short adjournment, the judges decided to list the case on April 9, 2026 and then take a call on fixing a date for final hearing. Mr. Wilson told the court the pleadings have been completed with the filing of the counter affidavit.

In his counter, Mr. Shankar told the court the writ petition filed by Kutty alias K. Venkatachalapathy of Tirunelveli was a politically motivated litigation since the petitioner had suppressed the fact that he was a district secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party. The Secretary also contended there was no question of the amendment Acts being in contravention of the University Grants Commission (UGC) Regulations, 2018.

He said, a vice-chancellor was an officer and not a teaching staff of the university in order to apply the UGC Regulations with respect to his/her appointment. He relied upon the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Madurai Kamaraj University former vice-chancellor Kalyani Mathivanan’s case to buttress his submission that a vice-chancellor was an officer of a university.

Further, highlighting the Centre’s power was limited to determination of standards with respect to higher education, Mr. Shankar said, such a power would not include the functions of regulation and administration of universities which fall under the legislative competence of the State. “The mandates of the appointing authority of a vice-chancellor does not have any direct bearing to standards of higher education,” he said.

He urged the court to dismiss the writ petition by imposing exemplary costs.