"Against Institutional Discipline": Kerala High Court Holds University Syndicate Cannot Litigate Against Chancellor’s Appellate Orders
The Bench held that a subordinate university syndicate cannot sustain a writ petition against its own statutory head to preserve administrative discipline.
Justice Ziyad Rahman A.A., Kerala High Court
The Kerala High Court has held that a University Syndicate, acting as a subordinate statutory or adjudicating authority within a university corporate structure, cannot mount a legal challenge under Article 226 of the Constitution of India against an order passed by the Chancellor, its statutory superior appellate forum.
The Court held that once an order is passed by the Syndicate, it becomes functus officio, and its regulatory decisions completely merge into the final statutory decrees of the superior appellate body. Further clarified that individual members of a University Syndicate do not possess the necessary locus standi as "persons aggrieved" to independently challenge a Chancellor's appellate order when their collective disciplinary decisions are overturned.
Justice Ziyad Rahman A.A. observed, “…permitting one authority under the Act, to challenge an order passed by the superior authority in the line of hierarchy, would be against the institutional discipline and if permitted, the concept of the body corporate and common seal contemplated under Section 3 of the Act would be defeated…the Syndicate is not competent to take a decision to challenge the order of the Chancellor, being the Head of the Institution and the superior/appellate authority of the Syndicate, particularly in a case where, the order appealed against is relating to the disciplinary proceedings against an employee of the University”.
Advocates Amal Kasha appeared for the petitioner and Senior Advocates P. Sreekumar and George Poonthottam appeared for the respondents.
The dispute originated from disciplinary proceedings initiated by the Syndicate of the University of Calicut against Mohamed Sajid T., an Instrumentation Engineer, who was found guilty of technical lapses in a Local Area Network tender evaluation that caused an undisputed financial loss of ₹27,42,116 to the institution.
The Syndicate demoted him to Junior Engineer for five years and ordered the recovery of the lost sum. Upon a statutory appeal preferred by the employee, the Chancellor set aside the Syndicate's order and directed his full reinstatement with all service benefits. When internal rifts and a newly appointed Vice-Chancellor stalled the University's collective decision to contest the Chancellor's decree, two individual Syndicate members filed separate writ petitions to force a judicial review.
Thereafter, the employee had successfully contested an initial suspension before a Single Judge, which was subsequently reversed by a Division Bench with a direction to complete the disciplinary inquiry within a specific timeframe.
Following the culmination of the inquiry and the final adverse statutory order by the Chancellor, the petitioner Syndicate members approached the High Court seeking to nullify the appellate reversal and to challenge the intermediate interventions of the Vice-Chancellor.
Dismissing the petitions, the High Court said that under the Calicut University Act, the Syndicate functions as an adjudicating authority whose disciplinary decisions are strictly subject to the Chancellor's appellate jurisdiction.
Relying on settled Supreme Court precedents, the Bench affirmed that judicial review is confined strictly to the decision-making process and cannot be transmuted into an appeal on factual merits, especially since the Chancellor provided a fair hearing to all parties without violating any principles of natural justice.
“…it is evident that, the writ petition can be maintained only by the persons aggrieved and the status of the petitioner as a person aggrieved has to be determined by applying the tests referred to above. When the issue at hand is considered in that perspective, I am of the view that the petitioners cannot be treated as persons aggrieved, as they are neither affected individually by the said decision nor their individual legal rights have been violated”, it observed.
The Court firmly reiterated that institutional mechanisms must respect the statutory finality built into university enactments, noting that Statute 64 of the Calicut University First Statutes explicitly obligates the lower authority to give effect to the orders passed by the appellate authority.
Accordingly, while dismissing the writ petitions, the Court directed the State Government and the University of Calicut to ensure that the ongoing investigation by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau is vigorously pursued to identify the actual culprits, recover the institutional loss, and enforce criminal accountability.
Cause Title: M.B. Faisal v. State of Kerala & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025:KER:99000)
Appearances:
Petitioner: Amal Kasha, T.B. Hood, and M. Isha, Advocates.
Respondents: P. Sreekumar and George Poonthottam, Senior Advocates, S. Prasant, Standing Counsel, P.C. Sasidharan, M.A. Vaheeda Babu, and K.G. Sarojini, Government Pleader.