Single judge order in TNDALU profs case stayed

The division bench comprising Justice K K Sasidharan and Justice P D Audikesavalu before whom the appeal filed by the University as well as its Vice-Chancellor T S N Sastry challenging the interim order passed by Justice S M Subramaniam, posted the case to Wednesday for orders after granting theinterim stay.

The issue of alleged illegal appointments had come to light on a plea moved by D Sankar, a professor at the varsity, who had sought to be reinstated as Registrar of the university. Though the plea had been moved four years ago, the issue took a turn with the former vice-chancellor Dr P Vanangamudi, raising allegations of some professors being appointed without the requisite qualifications.

Incidentally, Sankar was removed from the post of registrar and placed under suspension during Vanangamudi’s tenure based on lack of qualification. However, the UGC at a later stage had confirmed that the said person falls within the ambit of UGC norms and hence eligible for appointment.

But the issue remained pending with allegations of the issue being referred to the UGC while it had to be placed before the university senate.

However, Justice Subramaniam proceeding beyond the scope of the writ petition had in various interim orders directed the grievance committee to submit a report about the presence of unqualified professors in the varsity.

With the report submitted by the grievance committee corroborating with that of the former vice-chancellor Vanangamudi, the judge had directed the faculty to file individual affidavits, after holding that the court would scrutinise each affidavit independently and check whether the appointments were according to UGC norms.