The Madras High Court has flagged a governance crisis across 14 Tamil Nadu universities, including the University of Madras and Anna University, which are functioning without vice-chancellors or properly constituted syndicates. The court warned that the situation could directly affect students, staff, teachers and retired employees and directed the state higher education secretary to report on corrective action by November 17.
Justice Anand Venkatesh made the observations while hearing a batch of contempt petitions concerning Annamalai University’s delay in paying pension benefits to eligible pensioners. During the hearing, the petitioners told the court that the university’s registrar was facing practical difficulties because the institution had neither a vice-chancellor nor a syndicate.
Annamalai University is currently being run through a government-appointed Convenor Committee headed by an IAS officer. The petitioners submitted that the arrangement had created an “absolute lack of communication”, affecting the administration of the university and the handling of pending matters.
The judge recorded the submission and referred to similar problems at other major state universities. He said the court had earlier dealt with a matter involving the University of Madras, where nearly 500 retired persons had been waiting for final settlement of their dues for years. Those payments were eventually settled after prolonged pressure from the court, according to the hearing record.
Justice Venkatesh also referred to a separate issue concerning Anna University, where contempt petitions remain pending over the non-implementation of an order passed by the court. The judge said the common thread across the universities was their functioning without vice-chancellors and properly constituted syndicates, with temporary registrars and convenor committees assisting in administration.
The court observed that a convenor committee headed by an IAS officer could, at best, be a temporary arrangement. It said it was “virtually impossible” for such a committee to run the universities and administer the colleges under them. The observation places the issue beyond an individual appointment vacancy and links it to the functioning of the institutions’ formal decision-making structures.
The court’s intervention came in a case focused on pension payments, but the proceedings brought broader administrative consequences into focus. Delays in settling retirement benefits, pending contempt matters and difficulties faced by registrars were cited during the hearing as examples of how institutional gaps can affect employees and the implementation of court orders.
The court then suo motu impleaded Tamil Nadu’s higher education secretary as a party to the litigation. The secretary has been asked to report on the further course of action, with the matter scheduled to be taken up again on November 17.
