HC frowns upon top govt. officials for resisting steps taken by its retired judge to fill up Pachaiyappa’s college faculty vacancies

The Madras High Court has decided to examine whether top officials of the State government had committed criminal contempt of court by resisting the step taken by its retired judge V. Parthiban, who had been appointed as an Interim Administrator of Pachaiyappa’s Trust, to fill up 132 faculty vacancies in six colleges run by the trust in Chennai, Kancheepuram and Cuddalore districts.

Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy wrote: “Prima facie, it appears that all the authorities are bent upon the fact that the trust election should be first conducted and only trustees alone should fill up the vacancies. Unfortunately, and audaciously, the [Higher Education] Secretary to the government, the Commissioner [Director] of Collegiate Education and the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, all seem to have taken action towards achieving the sole object. This cannot be viewed lightly and has to be examined in detail.”

He also said: “In this case, from the very beginning, there was a very strong opposition at each and every stage. The opposition started at the stage of issuance of recruitment notification, and it continues till date. After all, the honourable retired Judge of this court has been appointed as the administrator, and by following due procedure, selection of meritorious candidates was sought to be made. Such an exercise had faced stiff resistance.”

Justice Chakravarthy further observed: “I find an orchestrated and concerted attempt to overreach the orders of the first Division Bench of this court. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Pachaiyappa’s Trust being a trust board is functioning through the elected trustees and a lot of political activities are going on. There are unseen elements who feel that their cheese has been moved and all the officials of the government, unfortunately, forgetting their bounden duty to fill up the vacancies at the earliest, are falling prey to the sinister attempts of stalling the entire process.”

The judge pointed out that a former student of Pachaiyappa’s College, V. Ramamurthy, had filed a public interest litigation petition (PIL) last year, challenging the recruitment notification issued on February 1, 2024. Then, the petitioner had contended that the interim administrator had no authority whatsoever to fill up the faculty vacancies and that his work was restricted to the conduct of elections to the trust.

It was also argued that prior permission of the Directorate of Collegiate Education had not been obtained before issuing the recruitment notification. However, on February 23, 2024, the first Division Bench of the High Court, comprising its then Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice Chakravarthy, dismissed the PIL petition after observing that no prior permission was required to fill up sanctioned posts.

Then, taking note that the notification had been issued by the secretary to the trust and not the interim administrator, the first Bench wrote: “The colleges cannot function without Assistant Professors and the staff. More than 130 posts of Assistant Professors are vacant in six colleges. If the posts are not filled in, the educational activity would be paralysed. The loss would be to the students.”

Despite such a categorical order passed by the Division Bench, the State government, on April 8, 2025, requested the Director of Collegiate Education to accord approval to the Director of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) to conduct a detailed enquiry against the trust. The sanction was sought after the DVAC had put up a confidential note in this regard on February 12, 2025, Justice Chakravarthy pointed out.

“Further, all the allegations that were rejected by the court are also mentioned about the selection, which is made under the chairmanship of the interim administrator. The same is made without approaching the court. The said steps have to be viewed in the backdrop of the aforesaid facts, whereby, there has been complete resistance at each and every stage. The vigilance report completely ignores the very many findings given in the various orders passed in the several writ petitions that are filed in the matter,” the judge added.

Therefore, he agreed with senior counsel E. Omprakash, assisted by advocate M.R. Jothimanian, for the trust, that the issue requires a detailed examination and if, after the examination, the entire exercise was found to be unjustified, then, it should be viewed as the gravest form of threat, thereby, directly interfering in the due course of administration of justice, and thereby constituting criminal contempt of court.

Since issues related to initiation of criminal contempt proceedings could be dealt with only by a Division Bench and not a single judge, Justice Chakravarthy directed the High Court Registry to place the case papers before Chief Justice K.R. Shriram, so that they could, in turn, be placed before the Division Bench concerned for initiation of criminal contempt.

CIVIL CONTEMPT

The orders were passed on a civil contempt of court petition filed by Pachaiyappa’s Trust Board in 2024 against the failure on the part of the University of Madras and Annamalai University to nominate two persons each to be a part of the selection committee. However, after the directions issued in the contempt plea, the committee ended up selecting 126 candidates, but the approval for the selection was delayed.

The Directorate of Collegiate Education contended that the reservation system had not been followed properly with respect to 34 selected candidates, and hence, the entire selection list would stand vitiated. However, the judge found that the objections with respect to the 34 candidates was related to horizontal reservation and therefore, the selection of others based on vertical reservation would not get affected.

Holding the Director of Collegiate Education guilty of contempt for having rejected approval for the entire list of 126 candidates, the judge directed the officer to be present in the court on June 2. The judge said the Director could either come up with a revised approval order or explain as to how her conduct did not amount to wailful disobedience before the court could pass final orders on the next date of hearing.