The Higher Education department of the Keralam government has ordered the Registrar of the University of Calicut to explain how P. Rasheed Ahammed was appointed pro-Vice-Chancellor (PVC) without prior government sanction, and under whose authority he was released from his teaching post.

Ahammed was serving as Professor in the Department of Arabic at KTM College of Advanced Studies in Karuvarakundu, Malappuram. That is an aided institution affiliated with the university. He took charge as PVC after leaving that post, and the state now wants to know how that transition happened on paper.

The pressure came in a letter dated November 3, sent by a department under secretary to both the Registrar and the manager of the college. The government did not hedge. It asked how Ahammed was relieved of his duties at his parent institution and permitted to take over as PVC on deputation, without obtaining prior sanction from the government. The letter points to the government as the competent authority for approving such appointments.

“You are also requested to clarify the circumstances under which the said arrangement was made and the authority under which the relieving and joining orders were issued, despite the absence of government sanction.”

That single sentence captures the core of the dispute. The question is not only whether Ahammed is qualified for the post. It is whether the paperwork that moved him into it followed the rules at all.

The Registrar says an answer is coming

C.D. Sebastian, the Registrar, said on Thursday, November 5, 2026, that the university would communicate an explanation clarifying its position to the government soon. He also confirmed that a request for Ahammed’s deputation had already been sought. That detail matters. It suggests the university acknowledges the deputation request exists, even as the government questions the authority behind the relieving and joining orders.

Sebastian’s remarks stopped short of answering the central question, at least publicly. The government wants the circumstances explained. The university has promised a reply. Until that reply arrives, the gap between the request and the approval remains the story.

The Syndicate fight escalates

The controversy has moved well beyond the state secretariat. Pro-Left members of the university’s Syndicate have demanded the resignation of Vice-Chancellor P. Raveendran and Ahammed. They allege procedural irregularities in the PVC’s appointment and want the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) to investigate alleged misuse of official powers.

In a joint statement, Syndicate members M.B. Faisal, T. Mohammed Saleem, K. Mohamed Haneefa, K. Pradeep Kumar, P.P. Sumod, MLA, and P. Sushanth said the department’s intervention vindicated the objections they had raised earlier. For them, the government letter is proof that their warnings were not paranoia. They had said the appointment was flawed, and now the state is asking the same questions.

The Syndicate members went further. They accused the Vice-Chancellor of bringing the proposal to a Syndicate meeting as an out-of-agenda item and pushing it through despite their opposition. That is a serious charge in any university governance dispute, because it goes to whether the body was allowed to deliberate properly before a decision was made.

The timing that has people asking questions

Perhaps the most striking allegation concerns the clock. According to the Syndicate members, the appointment order was issued at 3 p.m. on the day of the Syndicate meeting. They say this happened without completing the prescribed procedures for deputing a teacher from an aided college into another position.

Those procedures, as the members describe them, are demanding. The university would need to obtain a no-objection certificate from the college management. It would also need to secure the necessary approvals through the Directorate of Collegiate Education and the Higher Education department before relieving a teacher from a post. If those steps were skipped or compressed into a single afternoon, the appointment would look less like routine administration and more like a rushed decision.

The members are not making these claims from a neutral position. They are in open opposition to the Vice-Chancellor. But the state’s letter now asks the same questions about authority and approvals, which gives their objections a new weight.

The salary question

The dispute also reaches into money. The Syndicate members questioned the reported use of the Vice-Chancellor’s emergency powers under Section 10(13) of the Calicut University Act to facilitate the payment of salary to the PVC. Their argument is blunt. Without the requisite government-approved deputation order, they say, paying the salary would be legally untenable.

That is where the story could turn from an administrative row into a legal one. If the deputation order is missing, the question becomes who authorised the payments, and on what basis. The members have asked for an investigation under the Prevention of Corruption Act into the circumstances surrounding the appointment and the alleged exercise of official powers.

What comes next

Three things will decide how this plays out. The first is the university’s written explanation, which the Registrar has promised to send to the government. The second is whether the state accepts that explanation or pushes for more. The third is whether the VACB is asked to act on the Syndicate’s complaint.

For now, the facts are narrow but pointed. A senior academic left his post at an aided college, took over as pro-Vice-Chancellor, and the government wants to know whether it had the power to approve that move. The answer will show whether the rules were followed, or whether the university’s top officials bent them to get the job done.