According to highly placed varsity sources, the council which met under the chairmanship of acting VC Dharamveer at Chandigarh yesterday, has given its nod to eight appointments and asked one official to furnish experience certificate. ``The final decision in this regard would, however, be taken by state Governor Mahabir Prasad, who is also the chancellor of the varisity'', the sources informed.

Thirteen of the EC members attended the meeting which was summoned to review the selections. The decisions taken were unanimous, while a reader in the department of environmental studies Vinod Garg was given opportunity to be heard.

The state government had earlier put a ban on fresh appointments in all the three varsities including GJU, probably to stall the selection of these 23 teachers. Various irregularities, like vague qualifications, false certificates and nepotism were committed in the appointments and resulted in their cancellation. Other reasons forwarded to the chancellor by the EC were the reorganisation of various departments and review of teaching load coupled with a financial crunch. At least four newly-appointed teachers were stated to be related to the faculty members.

The meeting which lasted for about two-and-a-half hours has also decided to delegate more powers to the registrar, who can impose penalties up to the level of assistants and below.

Deans of various departments can also be given similar powers.

In another decision, a bar of three years has been imposed on teachers for leaving the job, sources said and added, ``more changes are also in the offing".