Karnataka High Court Clears Vidyashankar's Second Term as VTU Vice-Chancellor

The High Court of Karnataka has dismissed a petition challenging the continuance of S. Vidyashankar as Vice-Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), ruling that the extension of his tenure was a lawful exercise of statutory discretion and did not call for a fresh selection process.

Justice M. Nagaprasanna delivered the verdict on a plea filed by Dr. Nageswara Rao Tubati, a professor at Oxford College of Engineering, Bengaluru. The court held that a writ of quo warranto — a high prerogative remedy requiring a person to demonstrate the authority under which they hold public office — could not be issued absent a clear statutory or constitutional violation.

The petitioner had challenged the Chancellor's notification dated September 3, 2025, which granted Mr. Vidyashankar a second three-year term under Section 13(4) of the VTU Act, 1994. His original appointment was made on September 29, 2022, and had already been upheld by a Division Bench of the High Court in 2023 and later by the Supreme Court in April 2024.

Among the grounds raised were the absence of a University Grants Commission (UGC) nominee on the original Search Committee and the alleged links of two committee members to the university, which the petitioner argued rendered the appointment illegal under the UGC Regulations, 2018. Pending criminal proceedings against the incumbent were also cited.

Rejecting these contentions, Justice Nagaprasanna observed that a reappointment which is an immediate continuation of the first tenure, and where the governing statute does not mandate a fresh process, need not be subjected to every scrutiny that an original appointment must undergo.

The court further noted that the grounds now advanced, including the missing UGC nominee, had been available and were urged during the earlier challenge to the initial appointment, and had attained finality since the apex court declined to interfere with the original appointment. It observed that the same appointment, the same incumbent, and substantially the same foundational grounds cannot be placed on the anvil repeatedly merely because the hand wielding the hammer has changed, and dismissed the petition on that basis.