Relief for law univ teachers as HC stays single judge’s order

A division bench comprising Justice KK Sasidharan and Justice P D Audikesavalu said, “The writ petition has nothing to do with the service of either the other teachers or the appointment of the vice-chancellor. The question of adjudicating the eligibility of the vice-chancellor and the teachers to hold the respective posts would arise only in case their appointments are challenged in the manner known to law.”

Also, noting that the writ petitioner Dr D Shankar is concerned only with his service and the possibility of affecting his career on account of the proceedings impugned in the writ petition, the bench said, “the counter affidavit filed by a party to the writ petition cannot be the basis to expand the scope of the writ petition or to make other parties to the list.”

“We are therefore of the view that the appellants must succeed. We make it clear that the only issue to be decided in the writ petition moved by Sankar is the legality of the order dated August 12, 2015 and other issues indicated in the single judge’s order dated February 01, 2019 are not germane for consideration for deciding the said issue,” the bench added.

The TNDALU and its vice-chancellor had come up with the intra court appeal with a grievance that the single judge exceeded the brief and expanded the scope of a simple writ petition filed by a faculty member into a public interest litigation.

As per the case, Sankar had moved the plea in 2015 challenging the proceedings dated August 12, 2015 on the file of the Vice-Chancellor, TNDALU, that the finding given by the high-level committee in relation to counting his past service were not based on relevant materials.

Thereafter, the then vice-chancellor Dr P Vanangamudi. who was the author of the August 2015 proceedings was impleaded in his personal capacity as a respondent in the case.

After his failed attempt to get a second term as vice-chancellor, Vanangamudi filed a counter contending that some of the professors/lecturers/assistant professors were not eligible to apply for the post of which they are presently occupying in the law university.

Following this, the single judge passed a series of order to probe into the question of eligibility of the teacher to hold the post.

He through an order on February 01, 2019 impleaded the present vice-chancellor and 30 members of the faculty and two assistant librarians as parties, notwithstanding the fact that the issue in the writ petition related only to an adverse order passed against D Sankar.