A Kerala VC becomes scapegoat in spat between Governor, Govt

Thiruvananthapuram, March 30 (IANS) Dr Ciza Thomas, the in charge Vice Chancellor of the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU), has become a victim on the ongoing tiff between Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, who is Chancellor of the state varsities, and the Kerala government headed by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Thomas was asked to take over as the in charge VC of the KTU last year by Khan after the Supreme Court's ruling that the incumbent VC was not appointed following the guidelines of the UGC and had to quit.

But the Vijayan government was unhappy over her appointment and approached the Kerala High Court against her appointment as Khan had not appoint the person it had recommended.

However, the court upheld the appointment of Thomas, who was then serving as Senior Joint Director in the Directorate of Technical Education, when she was given the additional charge as in charge VC.

Ever since she took over the in-charge post of VC, she had to face strong protests from the ruling CPI-M's student wing, SFI, not to mention from the CPI-M backed service organisations also.

She had to sent a hand-written message to inform the Chancellor that she has taken over charge, after there was non-cooperation from the office staff of KTU.

Later the government served a show cause notice to Thomas and on Thursday based on her petition to the Kerala Administrative Tribunal, she said she has done no wrong, but only listened to the directive of the Chancellor and the notice should be cancelled.

The Tribunal ruled that the notice cannot be cancelled but directed that Thomas should be heard by the government.

Incidentally Thomas retires from service on Friday but in the final days, has become a scapegoat in the tiff between two power centres.

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