Kochi 22 August : Following the Governor Arif Mohammed Khan last week blocked the his appointment of the wife of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s private secretary K.K.Ragesh as Associate Professor of Malayalam at the Kannur university The Kerala High Court on Monday extended the appointment until the 31st of August and gave a notice for all parties.Responding to a petition filed by the second-ranked candidate requested to the University Grants Commission to be included in the petition and for the notice to be delivered to governor, the state government, Governor and the varsity Vice Chancellor.
It was in June that Kannur University cleared the appointment of Ragesh’s wife Priya Varghese.However, as of the time of writing, it had not issued an appointment letter.
After the media was raking up the appointment as an act of favoritism, the situation got worse for her as an RTI application revealed that she was not in place.
The RTI information that was released this week, revealed that she scored the highest marks (32 out of 50) in the personal interview and the second-ranked candidate Jacob Skariah scored 30, however her overall score for research was 156 and the second-ranked candidate scored 651 and she was placed first based on the personal interview.
Skariah came to the High Court, arguing that he was not allowed to be heard and after examining the procedure and hearings, suspended any future procedures in the selection of Varghese.
The Governor who took the first step since he is now has thrown a hat at Kannur University Vice Chancellor Gopinath Ravindran.
Ravindran also told reporters that he will not make any remarks regarding the court’s order.
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