CHENNAI: Upset over the deliberate action of the higher education department to “burke the truth” from the court by concealing records in connection with the granting of approval to the appointment of non-teaching staff at an aided college, the Madras High Court has imposed costs of Rs 50 lakh on the state government.
A division bench of justices R Subramanian and G Arul Murugan passed the orders recently while dismissing an appeal filed by the state government against a single judge’s order for granting approval for appointments on 12 posts which included sweeper, scavenger and gardener at GVG Visalakshi College for Women, Udumalpet in Tiruppur district.
“We dismiss the appeal with cost of Rs 50 lakh to be paid by the government,” the bench said in the order, adding this cost is imposed only because of the non-cooperative and adamant attitude exhibited by the officials of the department of collegiate education.
It directed the government to pay Rs 1.50 lakh each to the 12 employees who were not paid the salary; of the remaining amount, Rs 16 lakh shall be paid to the Cancare Foundation, Gandhi Nagar in Chennai, and another Rs 16 lakh to the Nethrodaya within eight weeks.
The bench ordered the government to recover Rs 25 lakh of the costs from C Poorna Chandran, the then director of the collegiate education, and the remaining amount from all the staff members of the directorate of collegiate education responsible for “screening away” the records from the court “with a sole object of burking truth” from the court.
Further, it ordered the secretary of higher education department to immediately initiate departmental action against them.
GVG Visalakshi college was sanctioned with 35 non-teaching posts. It had appointed 12 non-teaching staff members. The director of collegiate education Poorna Chandran approved the posts in 2022 but the salary was not paid. The college filed a writ petition which was heard by a single judge who ordered grant of approval, on April 2, 2024 to give approval for the appointment. However, the government filed the appeal.
It said only 11 posts were sanctioned and the remaining were ordered to be outsourced as per two G.O.s issued in 2019. However, the division bench pointed out that the high court had already ruled that the two G.O.s issued in 2019 shall not be applicable to private aided colleges and directed the government to grant approval within eight weeks.