Kerala govt issues directive for short-term placement of principals in 36 colleges

The decision was made in response to an August 3 order from the Kerala Administrative Tribunal. According to reports, appointments are being made for 36 of the 43 candidates who had already been chosen, except two people who asked to be omitted from the appointment and five people who retired.

Thiruvananthapuram: To fill the vacancies in government colleges, the Kerala government has ordered the temporary appointment of principals. The decision was made in response to an August 3 order from the Kerala Administrative Tribunal. According to reports, appointments were made for 36 of the 43 candidates who had already been chosen, except two people who asked to be omitted from the appointment and five people who retired. They would have to take part in the selection processes, according to Minister of Higher Education R Bindu.

The temporary appointments were made by the administrative tribunal's ruling that all applicants must participate in the selection procedure.

Before this, the administrative tribunal had ordered that the principal post appointments be made within two weeks. However, as one of the applicants was from Kottayam, the appointments were delayed due to the Puthuppally bypoll's code of conduct.

Earlier, a controversy erupted when a  Right to Information reply revealed that Minister R Bindu interfered with the selection of principals for government arts and science colleges, contravening UGC rules. The minister directed officials to treat the final selection list of 43 candidates for the posts of Principals in Government Arts and Science colleges as a 'draft' list in violation of the UGC norms, stated the RTI reply.