Plea by KTU V-C: Kerala HC declines to issue order

The Kerala High Court on Tuesday declined to issue an order on a plea filed by the Vice-Chancellor of the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU) K. Sivaprasad who approached the court seeking a directive to resolve the alleged administrative stalemate at the university.

He also sought a directive to the government officials concerned to attend the university’s Syndicate meeting.

Opposing this, the State government’s counsel sought more time to file an affidavit. The counsel added that the V-C’s petition had become infructuous since the Syndicate meeting was proposed on August 13, which is over. In addition, the Supreme Court had constituted a search-cum-selection committee chaired by a former judge of the apex court to select a V-C.

The V-C had submitted in his plea that of the nine Syndicate members, three abstained from meetings for political reasons. This resulted in the disbursal of the meetings for want of quorum.

He had submitted before the court earlier this month that employees had not been paid their wages for the past month and pensioners not been paid pension for two months as the university Budget was not passed due to ‘non-cooperation’ of the State government.