Tamil Nadu government has got greater powers to run the state-funded universities after the Supreme Court came down on Governor R.N. Ravi for withholding the bills passed in the state legislative assembly. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin will chair a meeting of vice-chancellors and registrars of state-run universities on April 16.
This is the first time in the history of Tamil Nadu that a chief minister will chair a meeting of the university authorities. Being the chancellor of the state-funded universities, it was the governor who administered the universities and chaired the meetings to ensure the smooth running of the educational institutions.
Though the meeting agenda is to improve the quality of education in the universities, sources say that the government is expected to speak in plain terms with the VCs and the registrars to adhere to the directions from the Higher Education Department and report to the DMK dispensation in the state. The meeting will clearly instruct the university authorities not to report to the governor or Raj Bhavan.
The governor continues to be chancellor of the universities, under the new laws, which were passed after the Supreme Court’s intervention. However, he will no longer have the power to oversee the functioning of the universities. The meeting also comes ahead of the Assembly discussion on the demand for grants for the higher education department for the financial year 2025–26, scheduled for April 24.
Sources say that the bills which became Acts are expected to bring the university heads, most of whom were directly appointed by Governor Ravi himself, under the state’s administrative framework.
After Ravi took charge as the governor, he had chaired a few meetings of the vice-chancellors and registrars and urged them to implement the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which the state is opposing. Ravi had always been saying that the NEP is “comprehensive, revolutionary, and transformative.”
Most of the VCs appointed by the governor have refused to comply with the directions issued by the higher education department. And now with the act in force, the state government can appoint VCs to the 12 universities where the positions are lying vacant due to the tuck-off between the governor and the government. The government is expected to ensure that these appointments are made through a selection process.
The Supreme Court verdict has given new strength to the Tamil Nadu, government, which has been facing a running battle with the governor, to reinforce constitutional morality and take forward the fight for cooperative federalism.
Earlier, in yet another incident, Governor Ravi has come under criticism for chanting 'Jai Shri Ram' during an event at the Madurai Kamaraj university. A body of Tamil Nadu educationists has written to President Drupadi Murmu demanding the removal of Governor Ravi for violating constitutional secularism by asking the students to chant 'Jai Shri Ram'.
