HC upholds AMU VC's appointment

The Allahabad High Court today upheld the appointment of Lt Gen (Retd) Zameer Uddin Shah as Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University and dismissed a petition which alleged he was appointed in violation of rules framed by the University Grants Commission.
A division bench, comprising Justice Dilip Gupta and Justice Vinod Kumar Misra, dismissed the petition of Syed Abrar Ahmed observing that Shah's appointment as Vice Chancellor "does not suffer from any illegality".
The petitioner had contended that Shah, who was appointed as VC in May, 2012, did "not possess the requisite qualifications provided for in UGC Regulations on Minimum Qualifications for Appointment of Teachers and Other Academic Staff in Universities and Colleges and Measures for the Maintenance of Standards in Higher Education, 2010".

As per the Regulations, "the Vice-Chancellor to be appointed should be a distinguished academician with a minimum of ten years of experience in an equivalent position in a reputed research and/or academic administrative organization" and since Shah did not have such experience, he was holding his post "without any authority".
The court, however, dismissed the petition while agreeing with the University's contention that Shah's appointment "had been made in accordance with the provisions of the Act and the statutes of the University" and "the UGC Regulations do not automatically apply to the University" since the varsity had not adopted the relevant clause of the Regulations nor had there been any subsequent "amendment in the University Act or the statutes to give effect to the provisions".