Chennai
The division bench comprising Justice S. Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad before whom a PIL challenging the appointment of Thangamuthu came up, offered the above direction before posting the case to Thursday for further hearing.
Mahalingam, an MKU alumni, has contended that the first bench while setting aside the appointment of Professor P P Chelladurai as VC of MKU on June 14, 2018 had directed the authorities to strictly follow the rules and statutes to ensure that the suitability and eligibility of the persons to be selected for the selection panel are not compromised.
But notwithstanding this, the administration has repeated the faulty exercise yet again in a hasty manner. Noting that though the first bench’s Judgment copy was made available only on June 22, the Secretary, Higher Education Department, had instructed the Registrar, MKU to convene the Syndicate meeting on June 16, 2018, which was a public holiday. Based on this, six Government officials travelled from Chennai to Madurai and in the meeting held on that day nominated and appointed Thangamuthu as search committee member against the prevailing rules.
He further alleged that no notice was given to syndicate members although the statute mandates publication of gazette notification for the constitution of such a Committee. Further the last date for filing nomination for search committee members must be fixed at least 14 days after the date of publication of notification, he added.
Also, the consent letter of the person to be selected should be placed in the syndicate meeting.
But no such letter was produced at the meeting, revealing that Thangamuthu’s nomination has been obviously done under the instigation and compulsion of the Principal Secretary, Higher Education Department, the petitioner alleged.
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