UGC shortlists five names for the post of Chairman

Updated on: Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The search-cum-selection committee for the chairman of the University Grants Commission has shortlisted five names. While the two contenders, who were already being named in the earlier list, namely Seyed E Hasnain, former vice-chancellor of Hyderabad University, and Pankaj Chandra, director of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, remained the frontrunners, the new names included in the list are director of Prof. S Parasuraman of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, chief statistician of India TCA Anant and the officiating chairman of UGC, Ved Prakash.

According to sources from the ministry of human resource development, the committee expanded the list to five candidates instead of two. While Hasnain remained the first choice of the committee closely followed by Chandra, the others in ascending order are Parasuraman, Anant and Prakash.

While the choice of the rest of the candidates were easy, there was dissent among members on the selection of Prakash as he had faced allegations of fraud and intimidation which had later been junked by the HRD. The search committee's list will now be forwarded to the HRD and then to the PMO for the final approval.

In September, the Delhi high court issued notice to the central government to respond to a petition seeking direction to fill the seat of UGC chairman which has been lying vacant since February 2011 after Prof. Sukhadeo Thorat completed his term as chairman.

Earlier, the search committee in February 2012 shortlisted Hasnain as its top choice for the post followed by Chandra but the HRD ministry selected Chandra and forwarded it to the PMO for approval. The PMO questioned why the first choice has been ignored and referred it back to the HRD. The committee had to start the process all over again and this time came up with five options for the post.

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