After the Madras High Court issued an order staying the operational provisions of 10 Acts that allowed the Tamil Nadu state government to appoint Vice-Chancellors to universities, the Tamil Nadu government decided to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.
The government’s decision comes following the Madras High Court ruling that stayed the operational parts of the Acts while hearing a petition, which challenged these laws. The state government had notified them immediately after the Supreme Court, in a ruling on April 8, said the Bills were “deemed to have received assent”, thus validating them as laws.
The state government passed 10 Amendment Acts giving itself the power to appoint Vice-Chancellors (VCs) of state universities. Previously, this power lay primarily with the Governor, following the guidelines by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
The Tamil Nadu government notified the Amendment Acts as Laws and published the same in the state gazette on April 11.
DMK MP P Wilson, who is also a senior advocate, said that a BJP-affiliated lawyer from Tirunelveli travelled to Chennai to file a petition before the vacation bench of the Madras High Court, which was heard on May 14.
“We argued that there was no urgency in hearing the petition since it challenged existing laws, and that the Supreme Court had already rejected the Attorney General’s argument that the Amendment Acts contravened UGC Regulations. Similar cases are pending before the Supreme Court,” Wilson explained.
When the case was adjourned to Wednesday, the Tamil Nadu Government filed a transfer petition to move the matter to the Supreme Court, which was mentioned before the Chief Justice of India (CJI) on Monday.
Wilson stated that the CJI had directed the state government to inform the Madras High Court judges through a memorandum. “Justices GR Swaminathan and Lakshmi Narayanan passed the order. I appeared virtually in the case, and the order was passed with my microphone on mute. When the judges resumed speaking, I enquired about the order, to which they replied that I would learn of it once it was formally passed. I subsequently discovered that a stay had been issued over the 10 laws.”
Wilson confirmed that the Tamil Nadu government has informed him of its intention to approach the Supreme Court regarding this order.
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