HC slams Pachaiyappa’s Trust Board management and principal for not allowing 254 assistant professors to attend work

The court wanted to know why the several assistant professors were restrained from attending work even before a court order against the latter’s appointments got released

The Madras High Court on Monday called upon the management of Pachaiyappa’s Trust Board and principals of six government aided colleges run by it to explain how they allegedly restrained 254 assistant professors from attending work without having received a court order passed against their appointment.

Second Division Bench of Justices Paresh Upadhyay and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy took serious note of a submission made by senior counsel V. Prakash, representing 10 assistant professors, that his clients were not allowed to sign the attendance registers since Friday last week though the court order against them was not available till Monday afternoon.

The judges found it hard to believe the explanation offered by the counsel for the college management that it was the assistant professors who did not attend to work and they were not prevented by anyone. They asked the principals to file an affidavit to that effect by Tuesday and warned that the court might examine the CCTV footage.

Initially, Mr. Prakash made a mention before the Division Bench on Monday and requested an urgent hearing of writ appeals filed by the assistant professors on the ground that they were not being allowed to attend to work though the order passed by Justice S.M. Subramaniam on November 17 was not out [in public domain]. The Bench agreed to hear the matter in the afternoon.

Subsequently, a web copy of the 194-page court order got released around 1 p.m. and hence the Division Bench was apprised of it when the latter convened at 2.15 p.m. After going through the operative portion of the order, the Bench decided to take up the writ appeal for admission on Tuesday after perusing the single judge’ order in full.

Meanwhile, Justice Upadhyay came down heavily on the college management for having prevented the assistant professors from reporting to work. Special Government Pleader D. Ravichander said even the single judge had permitted the assistant professors to work as guest lecturers for three months or until regular appointments were made.

In his verdict, Justice Subramaniam had held that he had no choice but to declare as null and void the appointment of all assistant professors who were appointed pursuant to the recruitment notifications issued by the Pachaiyappa’s Trust Board in 2013, 2014 and 2015 since it was difficult to identity tainted and untainted appointees.