Thiruvananthapuram: Governent representative and the Left members in the Kerala university syndicate on Friday opposed the recommendation of vice-chancellor P.K. Radhakrishnan to appoint Dr Achuth Shankar, head of the department of bio-informatics, as the university’s pro vice-chancellor. While two Congress members including Jyothikumar Chamakkala backed Dr Shankar’s name, the Left syndicate members and other members strongly opposed it. The vice-chancellor’s recommendation was opposed by higher education additional secretary Usha Titus, who attended as the government’s representative, also.
According to new UGC rules, full-time professor in the university can be recommended to the PVC post with the approval of the Syndicate. If the syndicate does not ratify the recommendation, it should be handed over to the governor who is the appointing authority. It is understood that the vice-chancellor is likely to send the recommendation to appoint to the Governor P. Sathasivam notwithstanding the syndicate’s opposition.
Meanwhile, the syndicate removed registrar-in-charge M. Jayaprakash from the post due to the failure in publishing the results in time and gave charge to Dr R Jayachandran, head of the department of Hindi. The meeting also decided to entrust the inquiry into complaints about Kerala Law Academy Law College with the syndicate subcommittee on affiliation. The meeting also decided to ask Kerala Law Academy Law College principal V.N. Mani to be present in the next syndicate meeting.
