Madras High Court Keeps In Abeyance Single Judge Order Terminating 254 Assistant Professors In Pachaiyappa Colleges

A division bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday kept in abeyance a single judge's recent order terminating appointment of 254 Assistant Professors in the colleges maintained by the Pachaiyappa Trust.The bench of Justice Paresh Upadhyay and Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy observed that the order of the single judge was unsustainable and to be kept in abeyance till the final hearing of the appeal."Order of single judge is unsustainable and needs to be kept in abeyance till the final hearing of the appeal."On November 17, the single judge declared as null and void the appointment of 254 assistant professors in colleges managed by Pachaiyappa Trust after it was found that the appointments were tainted with malpractice. The court had observed that since it was not possible to segregate the tainted and non-tainted appointments, it was preferable to cancel the entire appointment.In appeal, the private respondents submitted that the order of the single judge has resulted in grave injustice. They contended that the impugned order was passed without affording an opportunity to the professors to respond to the allegations raised in the report submitted in court one day before the pronouncement.It was also submitted that the petitioners never prayed to set aside the appointments and thus the court should not have granted such a relief against affected persons, who were not even party to the proceedings.The appellants further submitted that the order had erroneously mentioned that the candidates were unqualified. In service jurisprudence, an unqualified candidate was one who did not have the requisite qualification to participate in the recruitment process, it was contended. The court was told that it was never a case that the professors were not qualified. "Even as per the directors and the management, the professors had the necessary qualification. The issue was only with respect to the award of marks," the court was told.Case Title: P Elangovan and others v. R Prema Latha and othersCase No: WA 2558 of 2022

Madras High Court Keeps In Abeyance Single Judge Order Terminating 254 Assistant Professors In Pachaiyappa Colleges

Upasana Sajeev

Tags