Plea at Madras High Court seeking stay on 12 laws taking away T.N. Governor’s power to appoint Vice-Chancellors

PIL challenges Tamil Nadu laws appointing Vice-Chancellors, citing UGC regulations and constitutional repugnancy, filed in Madras High Court.

A public interest litigation (PIL) petition has been filed in the Madras High Court to declare as null and void the 12 amendment Acts passed by the Tamil Nadu legislature to make the State government, instead of the Governor, the appointing authority for Vice-Chancellors of various State-run universities.

A summer vacation Bench of Justices G.R. Swaminathan and V. Lakshminarayanan admitted the main writ petition on Wednesday (May 14, 2025) as it challenges the validity of the laws and ordered notice, returnable by May 21, to the State government on the petitioner’s plea for grant of interim orders. 

During the course of arguments, Advocate General P.S. Raman said, a week would be too short a time for the State government to file a counter affidavit to the interim stay petitions. He said, at least three government departments would have to vet the counter affidavit before it could be filed in the court.

On his part, Senior Counsel P. Wilson, representing the Higher Education department, said, a petition with a similar prayer was pending in the Supreme Court. He also stated that Attorney General R. Venkataramani too had attacked the 12 laws during the hearing of cases filed by the Tamil Nadu government against the Governor for delaying grant of assent.

The Supreme Court had considered all those submissions and then passed a detailed judgment running for over 400 pages in which the Acts were deemed to have been granted assent. Therefore, the petitioner could not be allowed to reagitate the issue before the High Court, Mr. Wilson said.

Justice Swaminathan asked the Attorney General as well as the senior counsel to make their submissions next week and directed the Registry to list the matters again on May 21 for considering petitioner’s plea to stay the operation of the 12 amendment Acts until the disposal of his PIL petition.

K. Venkatachalapathy, a lawyer based in Tirunelveli district, had filed the PIL petition through his counsel V.R. Shanmuganathan. The petitioner claimed that the amendments had been made to the Acts applicable to medical, law, veterinary sciences and many other State universities.