Thiruvananthapuram: The Kannur University union on Tuesday directed the scrutiny committee to review the candidature of Priya Varghese, wife of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s secretary KK Ragesh, for the post of associate professor of Malayalam in the university, according to the Kerala Higher Education Institution. Court last month.
Priya Varghese’s appointment was approved by the union earlier this year, but ran into trouble when the runner-up approached the high court, even though Chancellor Arif Mohammed Khan and Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan had earlier canceled her appointment as she did not have the required qualifications.
This appointment created quite a stir in the state and with Khan taking a strong position, his relationship with Pinarayi Vijayan has been a toss-up, with each missing a chance to take on the other.
After the runner-up’s plea, the high court ruled that Priya Varghese was not qualified to be considered for the post.
The court said that the control committee did not see that he did not have the required qualification. All UGC guidelines were violated and the court cannot overlook it. He asked the Kannur University to revise the ranking list and come up with a new one.
Ragesh is a former CPM Rajya Sabha member from Kannur.
An RTI query had earlier revealed that Varghese scored the maximum score (32 out of 50) in the personal interview, while second runner-up candidate Jacob Skariah scored 30, but his research score was just 156, while Jacob scored 651 Meanwhile. ranked first by personal interview.
The judge further ruled that he did not have the prescribed experience as a teacher and all the arguments put forward by Kannur University and Varghese were not tenable as the UGC had also made it clear that he lacked the requisite teaching experience.