Governor's Post As Chancellor

Council proposed consulting CABE on Governor’s role27/10/2022 G. Krishnakumar KOCHIThe Kerala State Higher Education Council (KSHEC) had recommended that the government consult the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) to evolve a broad level of understanding on the powers and responsibilities of the Governor as Chancellor of State universities.The council came up with the suggestion in its letter on the role of the Governor as Chancellor of State universities based on the Punchhi Committee report on Centre-State relations submitted to the Principal Secretary, Department of Higher Education, in October 2020.The Left government had endorsed the recommendation of the committee, which said that “making the Governor the Chancellor of State universities and thereby conferring powers on him, which may have had some relevance historically, has ceased to be so with the change of times and circumstances.”It had also noted that the council of Ministers would naturally be interested in regulating university education, and that there was no need to perpetuate a situation where there would be a clash of functions and powers.The council had pointed out that bringing up the issue before CABE would help individual States make suitable modification in their Acts, even while accommodating their specific concerns. It may not be desirable or feasible to enact a Central law uniformly defining the powers of the Governor as Chancellor of State universities and private universities, given the federal character of the Constitution and the compulsions of conceding greater financial, administrative and academic freedom to private universities as compared with government-run universities, it said.As far as Kerala is concerned, the powers and responsibilities of the Governor as Chancellor of universities are clearly defined in the respective Acts of the universities, according to the letter.However, the council’s recommendations were not taken forward after the standing committee of the Inter-State Council did not accept the recommendations of the Punchhi Committee.