The Supreme Court on Friday gave tentative approval to the appointment of Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee as vice-chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University but withheld clearance for VC appointments at 16 other universities in Bengal.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi directed a search-cum-selection committee, headed by former Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit, to give its final opinion on the pending appointments.

The committee was constituted by the apex court on July 8 last year to resolve a standoff between Bengal governor C.V. Ananda Bose — the chancellor of state-aided universities — and chief minister Mamata Banerjee over VC appointments.

The bench instructed the committee to review the second and third preference candidates recommended by the governor to the state government and assess their eligibility and suitability for the posts.

The court’s order had not been uploaded to its website till late on Friday.

The court’s directions followed submissions by Attorney General R. Venkataramani, appearing for the governor, and senior advocate Jaideep Gupta and standing counsel Kunal Mimani, representing the Bengal government. Both sides agreed to let the committee make the final decisions on appointments.

The bench noted that Chakravarti Banerjee was the only nominee over whom there was no disagreement between the two constitutional heads — making her appointment as RBU VC the sole consensus so far.

At the previous hearing, the court had asked the state and the governor to examine a confidential report submitted by former Chief Justice Lalit. But the court did not disclose the contents of the report on Friday.