Elections to the Syndicate of the University of Calicut are likely to be delayed further with the Kerala High Court on February 23 restricting Governor and Chancellor Arif Mohammed Khan from taking any steps on petitions filed by two Senate members against the rejection of their nominations for 10 days.
Justice C.P. Mohammed Nias issued the order, based on a petition filed by K. Mohammed Haneefa, one of the Left-aligned candidates for the Syndicate polls.
In his plea, Mr. Haneefa had challenged the stay order issued by Mr. Khan on the conduct of the polls, originally scheduled for February 17. The Chancellor stayed the process after P. Raveendran, Professor attached to the Department of Chemistry, and T.M. Vasudevan, Professor with the Department of Library and Information Science, who are Senate members and also functionaries of a Congress-affiliated university teachers’ association, petitioned him against the rejection of their candidature.
The university Registrar, who is also the returning officer for the elections, had pointed out that they could not contest the elections as they were nominated members of the Senate and not elected ones. Following the High Court order, a hearing of their petitions scheduled at Raj Bhavan on February 24 too was postponed.
Members of the Syndicate are elected from among Senate members. Elections to the Senate were completed by June 30, 2023. The Governor nominated 18 persons to the body by November 2023.
There are a couple of cases pending in the High Court related to the elections. The revised election schedule will now be decided only after the court delivers its orders on them. Also, the university authorities may have to convince the Chancellor about the legality of their decision on the rejection of candidature of Mr. Raveendran and Mr. Vasudevan.
