The Allahabad High Court rejects a petition that challenges the AMU Vice Chancellor selection process

On Thursday, the Allahabad High Court denied a writ petition that contested the Aligarh Muslim University’s vice chancellor appointment procedure. During the hearing, the petitioner’s attorney asked the court to withdraw the writ petition, allowing them to submit a new one. Judge Vikas Budhwar granted the request, dismissing the case as withdrawn.

Syed Afzal Murtaza Rizvi, the petitioner, had petitioned the court on the grounds that a committee led by Gulrez had nominated three applicants, one of whom was the wife of the university’s acting vice chancellor, Muhammad Gulrez. The last three applicants, including Naima Khatoon, the acting VC’s wife, were selected for the position during a meeting of AMU’s governing board on November 6. The AMU Court, which is the governing body, gave Khatoon 50 votes. Khatoon is the principal of AMU’s Women’s College.

The other two shortlisted candidates, renowned jurist and former vice chancellor of National Law University, Nalsar Faizan Mustafa and M Uruj Rabbani, former head of AMU’s Faculty of Medicine, received 61 and 53 votes, respectively. The names of the final five candidates to be sent to the AMU Court were decided upon earlier during a meeting of the university’s Executive Council, which was presided over by Gulrez. The names of Furqan Qamar, the former vice chancellor of the University of Rajasthan and the first vice chancellor of the Central University of Himachal Pradesh, and Qayyum Hussain, the vice chancellor of Cluster University, Srinagar, were removed from the list on November 6, bringing it down to three.