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College issue: Writ filed to restrain Collector

Staff Reporter

From interfering in the American College affairs

“Collector was biased towards the “dismissed” principal and acting in a partisan manner”
Petitioner seeks quashing of communication on constitution of a committee to solve the row

MADURAI: A writ petition has been filed before the Madras High Court Bench here to restrain Collector S.S. Jawahar as well as his sub-ordinates from interfering with the administration of the American College here.

When the matter came up for hearing on Friday, Justice K. Chandru said that there was nothing wrong in the Collector organising a meeting to discuss the row over the college administration. Later, he adjourned the hearing after October 12. V. George Selvakumar, claiming to be the principal of the college, alleged that the Collector was biased towards the “dismissed” principal T. Chinnaraj Joseph Jaikumar and acting in a partisan manner.

The petitioner also sought for a direction to quash a communication issued by the Collector on Thursday announcing the constitution of an 11-member committee to solve the row over college administration. The communiqué stated that the committee headed by him would comprise Police Commissioner, Joint Director of Collegiate Education, Deputy Registrar of Societies and Chief Educational Officer.

Mr. Selvakumar and Mr. Jaikumar were asked to nominate three representatives each as members of the committee. It was also informed that the committee would meet in the Collector’s camp office on Thursday evening.

Assailing the communication, the petitioner said that the Collector ought not to have constituted such a committee because the High Court had granted an interim injunction restraining Mr. Jaikumar from interfering with the college affairs.

He apprehended that the meeting had been convened with the motive of preventing a religious convention proposed to be conducted by the CSI Bishop, Madurai and Ramnad Diocese, A. Christopher Asir, inside the college premises from Friday to Sunday. “I am legitimately apprehensive that the Collector may pass an adverse and coercive order against the college administration… The impugned communication has been issued at the instance of Dr. Chinnaraj Joseph Jaikumar. It is mala fide in character,” he said.

Appeal dismissed

The Bench also dismissed a writ appeal filed by the Bishop against a single judge’s order restraining him from conducting the religious convention inside the college. A Division Bench comprising Justice D. Murugesan and Justice M. Sathyanarayanan said that it would not be appropriate to conduct the convention in which nearly 10,000 people were to participate, in the backdrop of the violence that took place on the college premises on August 28.

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