Pachaiyappa’s trust case: Stay against order nullifying recruitment

CHENNAI: In a breather to the 254 assistant professors of the Pachaiyappa’s Trust Board, a division bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday granted a stay against the order of the single judge declaring null and void the recruitment of these teaching staffers on the ground that they were not properly appointed in the years 2013, 2014, 2015.

Heading the second bench along with Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy, Justice Paresh Upadhyay passed the interim stay on hearing the appeal petition filed by the 254 assistant professors.

The appellants sought direction to set aside the order of the single judge saying that the recruitment was made illegally without following the rules and regulations.

Senior Counsel Prakash for the appellants argued that the order was against natural justice as the court passed it without hearing his clients. “The government and the universities had approved the qualification and recruitment of the appellants, ” the appellants’ counsel argued.

Recording the submissions, the bench rejected the observation of the single judge by holding that Administrator of the Trust, former Justice Shanmugam, who assessed the recruitment process, had accused only of the weightage marks scored by the 150 assistant professors but did not find detrimental against the whole recruitment proceedings of the 254 candidates in 2013, 2014, 2015.

“Therefore declaring null and void the recruitment of all the 254 assistant professors by the single judge is unsustainable, ” the bench observed.

The trust informed the court that it has come to know that 152 assistant professors of the university do not possess the proper qualification.

Advocate R Shunmugasundaram submitted that since the court directed the Directorate of Collegiate Education (DCE) to file a report about the qualification of the 254 assistant professors, the state submitted the affidavit.

Recording all the submissions, the judges suspended the verdict by granting a stay against the judgment observing that the stay will be in operation till the disposal of the case.

On Monday, senior counsel for the appellants informed the bench that the Principals of the Pachaiyappa’s trust colleges had prevented all these assistant professors from signing the attendance register when the single judge’s order was not out. On hearing it, the judges directed Principals to file an explanation.