Appointment of wife of Kerala CM's pvt secretary at Kannur varsity stayed by HC

Kochi: After the appointment of K.K. Ragesh, the wife of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's private secretary, as an associate professor of Malayalam at the Kannur university was postponed by Governor Arif Mohammed Khan last week, the Kerala High Court on Monday extended the postponement until August 31 and gave notice to all other parties.

In response to a petition from the second-ranked applicant, the court also requested that notice be given to the Governor, the state legislature, and the university vice-chancellor. It also asked the University Grants Commission to be impleaded in the petition.It was in June that the Kannur University cleared the appointment of Ragesh's wife Priya Varghese, but to date, it had not issued the appointment letter.

Following the media raking up this appointment as an act of favouritism, things worsened for her, when an RTI application revealed all was not on board.

The RTI information that surfaced last week, revealed that she got the maximum marks (32 out of 50) in the personal interview, while the second-ranked candidate Jacob Skariah scored 30, but her research score was a mere 156, while the second-ranked candidate secured 651, and she was ranked first based on the personal interview.

Skariah approached the high court, contending that he was sidelined and the court, after going through the procedures, stayed all further proceedings in the appointment of Varghese.

It was the Governor which made the first move as he, by now, has taken up cudgels against Kannur University Vice Chancellor Gopinath Ravindran.

Meanwhile, Ravindran told the media that he is not going to make any comments on the court order.

With inputs from IANS