CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ordered the Director of Collegiate Education to appear before the court in connection with a contempt case filed by the Pachaiyappa’s Trust Board for disobedience of an earlier order of the court on providing approval to the selection list for appointment of 130 posts, including assistant professors, to the colleges run by the Trust.
Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy passed the order recently while hearing the contempt of court petition.
The matter pertains to filling 130 posts, for which the advertisement was issued on February 1, 2024. However, the announcement ran into trouble as the Collegiate Education department cautioned the Trust Board against going ahead with the procedure without prior permission.
A public interest litigation was filed challenging the notification but it was disposed of with an observation that prior permission was not required for filling sanctioned posts.
Later, the University of Madras and the Annamalai University refused to nominate their representatives to the selection committee. Certain other petitions were also filed in the court.
In the meantime, the Trust filed a contempt of court petition against the officials concerned for disobeying a division bench order (passed on April 23, 2023) to approve the proposals for appointment.
It was informed to the court that on April 7, 2025, the Director of Collegiate Education passed an order by considering the proposals sent by the Trust.
It rejected all the 126 proposals but found violations in only 34 posts, the judge noted in the order. The judge observed that such action clearly points towards wilful disobedience of the order of the court; and held the Director of Collegiate Education guilty of contempt of court.
However, he said he would give one more opportunity to the director to place her defence in the court; and directed her to appear before the court on June 2.
The judge also expressed anguish over the stiff resistance put up against the appointment procedure by the government officials, who stressed that elections to the Trust Board should be held first before making the appointments.