Thiruvananthapuram: Appointment of college principals in the state is in legal knots yet again. The Kerala Administrative Tribunal has directed to add UGC as a party in the suit. 

A group of teachers had approached KAT alleging foul play in the appointments. They claimed that the final list of 76 candidates prepared by the government were against the UGC guidelines.

The tribunal has stipulated that the appointments shall be done only in adherence with the UGC guidelines. The government can move ahead with the appointments only after the filed petition comes to a closure.

A selection committee appointed by the government had prepared a list of 43 candidates in March 2022. Out of the total 110 applicants, 67 were declared ineligible as per the UGC guidelines. Despite the PSC approving the final list of candidates, appointments were not done.

However, a few sections of people raised allegations that candidates with CPM allegiance were favoured in the selection process. But the official explanation given for the disqualification of the group of candidates was that their thesis were not published in approved journals.   

Meanwhile, the government had appointed yet another selection committee in the month of May which included 33 more candidates to the final list.  Amidst this, 7 teachers approached the tribunal questioning the feasibility of the new selection committee. It should be noted that the tribunal had ordered to go ahead with appointments of candidates included in the initial list, but the government had filed a petition for reconsideration.

Associate professors from Thrissur engineering college Dr C Viswanathan and Dr Sajeev S Nair, and Dr Jeepamol J Palathingal from PM government college were among the teachers who approached the tribunal. They had not featured in either lists. 

The petitioners are demanding a revamped list of selected candidates from a larger pool of teachers. Fattahuddin M, Thalima Noushad, and S Babu appeared on behalf of the complainants.