Kerala High Court cancels Governor Arif Mohammed Khan’s nominations for university senate

The Kerala High Court on Tuesday cancelled four nominations made by Governor Arif Mohammed Khan to the senate of the University of Kerala and said that his role as the chancellor did not allow him “unbridled power”, Live Law reported.

The governor is the chancellor of all the universities in Kerala. There are 13 universities in the state.

The senate is the governing body of a university. Members of the senate include the chancellor, the vice chancellor, heads of university departments and the principals of colleges, among others.

Section 17 of the Kerala University Act allows the chancellor to nominate four students to the senate — each distinguished by their exceptional academic abilities in the fields of humanities, sciences, sports or fine arts — as “other members”.

On Tuesday, Justice Mohammed Nias CP cancelled the nominations of the four students made by Khan under the “other members” category and directed him to select fresh nominees within six weeks.

The court’s order was in response to two petitions, filed by two students from the university, challenging Khan’s four nominations on grounds that they were legally unacceptable, Live Law reported.

Khan did not have unbridled power to select nominees while disregarding the ranks and merits of other students, the petitions added. In the given instance, he had selected his nominees without following the procedures adopted by the university, the petitions contended.

In response, the governor told the court that there was no prescribed procedure for making the nominations, adding that the nominees were selected after assessing their eligibility.

However, the court on Tuesday said that the nominations “at the very least should conform to the statutory requirements”.

Nias said: “Any arbitrary use of power violates not only the rule of ‘equality’ enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution of India but also the rule of ‘discrimination’ inbuilt in Article 16.”

While Article 14 provides for equality before the law, Article 16 prohibits discrimination in employment in any government office.

“An unguided, unfettered and unbridled power is foreign to the exercise of any power, constitutional or statutory,” the court said, adding that even when using discretionary powers, “reasonableness, rationality, impartiality, fairness and equity are inherent to such exercise and can never be according to any private opinion”.

Nias also said that if a nomination made was contrary to the statutory requirement or if irrelevant factors were considered in making the decision, “the nominations will have to be interfered with by the constitutional courts”.

He then quashed the four nominations and said that there was “no unbridled power vested with the chancellor while making the nominations in terms of the statutory provisions”.

The court also heard a third petition challenging the nomination of “government representatives” to the senate by the state government, PTI reported.

The Kerala Universities Act also allows for government representatives with appropriate experience in the field of higher education to be nominated to the senate.

According to the state government, such nominees did not have adequate professional experience and were also facing several criminal cases. However, the court dismissed the petition and said it was “difficult to hold that they are not from the field of higher education”.

It added that the criminal cases were registered “as part of their [nominees’] activities in public life”.

State Higher Education Minister R Bindu, in response to the court’s verdict cancelling the governor’s nominations, said that it was a “significant blow to his [Khan’s] efforts to impede the modernisation of higher education in the State”, The Hindu reported.

Bindu, in a statement, alleged that the governor had nominated four individuals outside the recommended panel of eight candidates provided by the university.