Chennai: Tamil Nadu govt on Wednesday requested the Madras high court for permission to appoint vice-chancellors to state universities as the Supreme Court has vacated its stay against the operation of amendments made to state universities acts.Advocate-general Vijay Narayan made the submission on a public interest writ petition by advocate T Venkatachalapathy seeking to quash the amendment and another petition moved by P Bhaskar seeking speedy appointment of V-Cs to universities.A vacation bench of the court had stayed all amendments to the acts, prompting the state to take up the matter with the Supreme Court, which stayed the order of vacation bench, he said. Vijay Narayan also pointed out that the state was unable to make the appointments in view of an undertaking given before the Supreme Court that it will not make such appointments until the matter is decided by the high court.“If our legislation is valid, a search committee has to be constituted in accordance with UGC regulations with a UGC nominee. Once the search committee recommends three names, the question is who makes the final appointment. Amendments say the state govt has to make the appointments,” the AG said.The first bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan said the court will consider all the aspects and pass orders.
