Castigating the Anna University for not inspecting the Dhaya College of Engineering, owned by the Alagiri Educational Trust, despite judicial orders to the effect, the Madras High Court (Madurai Bench) on Friday imposed a penalty of Rs 25,000 on the university’s Registrar.
The amount should be paid to the Dhaya college. Besides, Justice S Manikumar directed the university to grant provisional affiliation to the institution for the current academic year 2013-14. (Originally, the Anna University of Technology, Madurai, was cited as the respondent in the case. However, the university has since been merged with the Anna University, Chennai.) Allowing a writ petition filed by the college seeking affiliation from the university, Justice Manikumar said: “Once the University suffered adverse order in this court, and the same was ultimately confirmed by the SC, it is incumbent on the part of the University to respect the orders of this court and the SC.”
Appearing for the college, senior counsel Wilson submitted that despite the court’s direction to the university to inspect the college, the Registrar failed to take any steps. Wilson pointed out that an inspection committee constituted earlier, had in its report observed that the college had rectified all deficiencies and complied with all legal requirements for grant of affiliation from the university. However, the university’s Registrar had been willfully delaying the grant of affiliation on the basis of certain communications sent by the Town and Country Planning and Public Works Departments.
The counsel argued that there was no link between granting affiliation and questions raised by the PWD. While the university has granted affiliation to two other similarly placed institutions, it was deliberately delaying the same for Dhaya College. Hence, he prayed the court to direct the university to provide provisional affiliation as single window counselling for admission into BE/BTech courses was set to begin. Setting aside an impugned order of the Anna University dated May 25 denying affiliation to the college, the judge observed: “the respect to the courts’ orders is conspicuously absent.” The judge directed the university to grant the provisional affiliation and also allot the single window counselling code for the institution.