Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 16 (IANS): While Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan was looking into the appointment of Poornima Mohan in the Malayalam Lexicon department at the Kerala University, her resignation from the post was cleared by the syndicate of the university on Wednesday.

Poornima is the wife of former top Indian Revenue Service official R. Mohan who is the Officer on Special Duty to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

She was appointed to the top post last year and soon massive protests by the opposition student unions and the 'Save University Campaign Committee' broke out, which took up the issue with the Governor, who asked for all the papers for his perusal.

Committee's top office bearer R. Sasikumar who was in the forefront of complaint, said she was a Sanskrit teacher with the Kalady Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, and was appointed the editor of the Malayalam Lexicon, which was in total violation of qualification guidelines.

"How come a Sanskrit teacher can be appointed after ignoring qualified Malayalam professors of the university, which they say is against the statute of the University, as only persons proficient in the language are eligible. If she had applied as a Sanskrit teacher then it's fine, but this is not the case here and she has no locus standi to continue," said Sasikumar.

Incidentally all along Poornima maintained she has done no wrong and she had applied for the deputation post after seeing the notification and she got the job after an interview.

But at the height of the protests, the Kerala University, however, pointed out that the appointment was made by a selection committee of experts.

Apparently those who sat in this chair include eminent Malayalam scholars Sooranad Kunjan Pillai, B.C. Balakrishnan and P. Somasekaran Nair.