Karnataka High Court upholds second term to Vidyashankar as VTU Vice-Chancellor

The High Court of Karnataka has dismissed a petition challenging the continuance of S. Vidyashankar as Vice-Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), holding that the extension of his term was a valid exercise of statutory discretion and did not require a fresh selection process.

Justice M. Nagaprasanna, delivering the verdict on a petition filed by Dr. Nageswara Rao Tubati, ruled that a writ of quo warranto —a high prerogative remedy calling upon a person to show under what authority they hold public office — could not be issued in the absence of a clear statutory or constitutional violation.

The petitioner, a professor at Oxford College of Engineering, Bengaluru, had challenged the Chancellor’s notification dated September 3, 2025, which extended Mr. Vidyashankar’s tenure for a second three-year term under Section 13(4) of the VTU Act, 1994. The original appointment, made on September 29, 2022, had already been upheld by a Division Bench of the High Court in 2023 and subsequently, by the Supreme Court in April 2024.

The petitioner contended that the absence of a University Grants Commission (UGC) nominee on the original Search Committee and the alleged links of two committee members to the university rendered the appointment illegal under the UGC Regulations, 2018. He also cited pending criminal proceedings against the incumbent.

Rejecting these arguments, Justice Nagaprasanna said that “reappointment, when it is an immediate continuation of the first tenure and when the governing statute does not command a fresh process, need not be put through every sieve through which an original appointment must pass.”

The court further held that the grounds now raised, including the absence of a UGC nominee, were available and urged during the earlier challenge to the initial appointment and had attained finality as even the apex court had refused to interfere with the original appointment. 

“The same appointment, the same incumbent, and substantially the same foundational grounds, cannot be placed upon the anvil repeatedly, merely because the hand wielding the hammer has changed…,” the court observed while dismissing the petition.