The move came on a day when state Governor RN Ravi inaugurated a two-day conference of VCs at Udhagamandalam. The conference is also being attended by Zoho Corporation CEO Sridhar Vembu, whose participation in the event was questioned by the Congress party.
The bill was tabled by higher education minister K Ponmudy earlier in the day.
Arguing the need for its implementation, Chief Minister MK Stalin recalled that the Punchhi Commission on Centre-state relations had, while dealing with the subject of VC appointments, said "there would be a clash of functions and powers" if the authority to choose the top academician was wrested with the Governor.
The governor is the Chancellor of 13 varsities in the state, Stalin pointed out, with the higher education minister being the Pro-Chancellor.
Appealing for the assembly's support for the bill, the CM said that even in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the vice-chancellors are not appointed by the governor but by the state. Same was the case with Telangana, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
Stalin said that the government not being empowered to select the vice-chancellors created a "big impact" on higher education.
While the practice by the governor earlier was to consult the state government before selecting the vice-chancellors, "there has been a change in this in the past few years," he said.
In an apparent reference to the previous AIADMK government, Stalin said that in the last four years, the governor acted as if the appointment was his "exclusive right" and did not respect the state government that was providing higher education.
"A government elected by the people being unable to appoint vice-chancellor to a university-run by it creates a lot of issues in the overall varsity administration. This is against the democratic principles," Stalin said.
The BJP opposed the bill at the introductory stage while the main opposition AIADMK, taking exception to a remark on late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa by Congress legislature party leader K Selvaperunthagai, staged a walkout ahead of the passage of the bill.
Incidentally, the MVA coalition government in Maharashtra, headed by chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had initiated a similar move in December last year.
With inputs from agencies.
