thiruvananthapuram in a strongly worded letter to chief minister pinarayi vijayan governor and chancellor arif mohammed khan criticized the government for diluting the quality of higher education by choosing candidates of political choice to lead universities he also said he would relinquish the chancellors post so that the cm can assume it and carry out his political objectives without any interruptionin a fivepage letter sent to the cm on december 8 the governor said in the recent past the universities have been in news mostly for wrong reasons particularly with respect to various appointments made without following the prescribed rules and procedures during the last two and half years as chancellor of universities in kerala i have watched the situation with great dismay but the recent developments and the manner in which pressure is brought upon me to do things in total violation of rules and procedures has deeply saddened mecopies of the letter have been sent to higher education minister r bindu and kerala state higher education council vicechairman rajan gurukkal on the reappointment of kannur university vicechancellor gopinath ravindran the letter said i tried my best to persuade your legal advisor deputed by you to talk to me to appreciate that reappointment is not the same as extension of term of the incumbent it does not mean to dispense with the prescribed procedure but he insisted that his advice was based on the opinion of the advocate general of the statei fully realized that what i was being asked to do was not consistent with rules and was contrary to law in order to avoid controversy i signed the order but i have been feeling extremely uncomfortable after that the governor saidhe said the existing scene was that universities are packed with political nominees and nonacademicians are taking academic decisionsno wish to pursue a course of conflict with my own govtthe political affiliations have created such an environment of indiscipline that a vicechancellor goes to court to challenge the decision of the chancellor even after the state government directs him to withdraw the case the governor said referring to a case filed by kerala kalamandalam vicechancellor against an order from the governor on an appointment in the deemed university khan also asked if it was because of the vcs active political affiliation as claimed by him that the government did not initiate action against him for the insubordinationhow serious is the government about the universities can be understood from the fact that the vicechancellor of the sri narayana guru open university has received no salary since his appointment why because the government has no time to fix his pay he said and added that the government did nothing even six months after he took up the matter with the higher education departmenti wish to make it clear that in the matter of kannur university i did something against my better judgement but i do not wish to do such things any more and at the same time i