MADURAI: The Madras High Court’s Madurai Bench on Tuesday recalled a non-bailable arrest warrant issued against the State Eligibility Test (SET) Secretary S John Michael Raj in a contempt case after he tendered an unconditional apology to the judge.
The contemnor S John Michael Raj, who is also Controller of Examination of Bharathiar University in Coimbatore, had earlier failed to implement a court order on SET.
Hearing a petition filed by Raj to recall the arrest warrant, Justice K Ravichandran recorded his apology and directed him to appear in court on June 16 when the contempt petition will be taken up.
Raj claimed that the university’s standing counsel had not clearly communicated the court’s earlier order to him. During the previous hearing the standing counsel had said that though he informed Raj about the court’s directions, the latter refused to respond to the same prompting the judge to issue an arrest warrant.
The SET Secretary submitted that the UGC did not comply with the High Court’s direction to enlist certain SET candidates as “qualified” for the post of Assistant Professor as a review petition has been filed in the Supreme Court on the matter.