Priya Varghese Nepotism Row| Apex Court Issues Notice In UGC's Appeal, Questions Kerala High Court's Interpretation

The Supreme Court today issued notice in the Special Leave Petition filed by the University Grant Commission against the Judgment of the Division Bench of the Kerala High Court upholding the selection of Priya Varghese, the wife of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's private secretary, to the post of Associate Professor in the Kannur University.

The Bench of Justice J.K. Maheshwari and Justice K.V. Viswanathan, while issuing the notice in the SLP, observed that the "Kerala High Court's interpretation was wrong to some extent", but did not stay the order. The Bench however ordered that the appointment of Priya Varghese which was made based on the judgment of the Kerala High Court, will be subject to the final outcome of the present SLP.

Additional Solicitor General K.M. Nataraj appeared for the UGC while Senior Advocate P.N. Ravindran along with Advocate Atul Shankar appeared for Dr. Joseph Skaria, the Petitioner before the High Court who challenged the appointment of Priya Varghese. The UGC contended in the SLP that the High Court's interpretation of the UGC Regulations is totally incorrect.

"Thus, the findings arrived at by the Hon’ble High Court vide the impugned judgment is totally an incorrect interpretation of the UGC Regulations", said UGC in its SLP filed before the Apex Court. The Single Judge of the High Court had considered the arguments of the UGC while holding that Priya Varghese did not have the relevant experience for the post of Malayalam Associate Professor at the University. However, while reversing the judgment of the Single Judge, the Division Bench interpreted the UGC Regulations to hold in favour of Priya Varghese, without considering what the UGC had to say about its own Regulations.

The UGC in its SLP submitted that the Single Judge had correctly held that the scrutiny committee of the University committed a grave error in accepting the assertion of Priya Varghese that she had the experience of teaching while pursuing PhD under the Faculty Development Programme as the experience of teaching is ‘actual teaching experience’, and admittedly the Priya, while pursuing her PhD was not burdened with any teaching assignment and was a full-time Research Scholar.

"..the Hon’ble High Court further ignored and failed to appreciate the observations/findings of the Ld. Single Judge that when the UGC, the author of the Regulations itself has taken a stand, then how can the court go beyond it or at variance to the same, particularly since, the binding precedents of the Hon’ble Supreme Court render the law that the Regulations of the UGC will override any contrary position in a Statute or a Legislation of the State", said the SLP.

By its Judgment, the Division Bench allowed the appeal of Priya Varghese and set aside the single judge's decision of November 17, 2022, and held that the time spent by Priya on research under the Faculty Development Programme of the Kannur University is entitled to be reckoned towards the research experience stipulated for the post. The Court held that merely on account of having pursued a research degree simultaneous with her teaching assignment, the research period will not be excluded from being counted as experience.

Cause Title: University Grants Commission v. Priya Varghese [SLP (C) No. 15816/2023]