india

Updated: Sep 26, 2019 10:10 IST

Legal expert Sudhir Krishnaswamy on Wednesday took charge as the vice-chancellor of the National Law School of India University just two days after students at the prestigious institution had boycotted an exam pressing for his appointment.

Krishnaswamy is an alumnus of the NLSIU and graduated from the varsity in 1998. He went on to study Bachelor of Civil Law and received a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University. Krishnaswamy has many other achievements, too. He was the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Visiting Professor of Indian Constitutional Law at Columbia Law School.

Krishnaswamy was a professor at the Azim Premji University till his selection as the V-C of NLSIU. He was selected by a search committee, which comprised of Supreme Court judges SA Bobde, MM Shantanagoudar, and V Gopala Gowda.

Krishnaswamy is known for his work on Constitutional law and has written extensively about it across various platforms.

However, his selection was not without controversy.

Krishnaswamy’s predecessor stepped down on July 31, and an interim V-C had held charge since then. This led to unrest among the students, and the varsity’s Students’ Bar Association (SBA) accused the registrar OV Nandimath of having delayed the process, though the latter maintained that the matter was pending with the Chief Justice of India, who is the Chancellor of the varsity.

Matter escalated over the previous weekend after the students began a sit-in protest, which culminated with a boycott of examinations on Monday. On that day, another alumnus of the varsity, Gopal Sankaranarayanan, had met the chief justice and justice Bobde and they assured the students that the appointment would be completed soon, prompting the students to end their protest.

However, Ved Prakash Sharma, co-chairman of the Bar Council of India, had called for a rethink on Krishnaswamy’s selection, saying it couldn’t be ruled out that Krishnaswamy had played a role in the student unrest.

Vignesh Ramakrishnan, a spokesperson of the SBA, said the students were glad that due process had been followed in the matter. “We are a glad that the due process of the law was upheld. We re extremely happy with this appointment,” he said. “We are indebted to our alumni, the chief justice, and Supreme Court judges for their support,” he added.