Higher Education Minister P. Viswanathan says a final decision on the long-stalled Vice-Chancellor appointments to State universities is expected next week.
Speaking at the National Education and Urdu Day celebrations at the University of Madras on 11 November, Mr. Viswanathan said a recent meeting with Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar had produced a preliminary understanding on the appointments, and that another meeting would be held within a week to settle the matter. He said a resolution was in sight. School Education Minister Rajmohan and Speaker J.C.D. Prabhakar also attended the meeting with the Governor. The minister acknowledged that several State universities are running without Vice-Chancellors. Cases connected to the appointments are pending before the Supreme Court and the Madras High Court, and he declined to say more because the matters are sub judice. Awards were given to teachers, poets and students at the same function.
He named no university and no candidate.
9,000 assistant professor posts are vacant
The vacancies run below the Vice-Chancellor’s office too. About 9,000 Assistant Professor posts in government colleges are vacant, the minister said. Teachers Recruitment Board examinations have filled 2,700 of them, and recruitment examinations over the next two years will cover the remaining 6,000. He gave no subject-wise or college-wise breakdown, and no examination dates.
The dispute has run through the courts since 2023
On 8 April 2025 a Bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan ruled in State of Tamil Nadu v Governor of Tamil Nadu that 10 Bills the Assembly had re-passed and sent back to the Governor on 18 November 2023 would be treated as having received assent. The same judgment laid down time limits for a Governor acting under Article 200 of the Constitution.
That ruling was about Bills in general, and the appointments themselves remain unsettled. The questions the minister would not discuss on Wednesday are the ones still before the Supreme Court and the High Court, and next week’s meeting with the Governor is the next fixed step.
Checked against official sources on 13 November 2026.
