Chennai: Madras High Court has issued notice to the Tamil Nadu government on a petition filed by the management of Women's Christian college, the first private women's college in the state, over the education department's refusal to approve appointment of 19 teaching staff.
Justice D Hariparanthaman, before whom the petition filed by the management came up for hearing, issued notice to the Secretary, Higher Education, the Joint Director of Collegiate Education, Regional Joint Director of Collegiate Education and University of Madras.
The judge ordered the Joint Director to give provisional approval to appointment of the 19 teaching staff.
"The aided private educational institutions shall appoint teachers in vacancies that arose due to retirement/resignation without loss of time. Otherwise, the same would seriously affect the education of the students. The aided institutions were catering to the needs of the poor students by collecting meager amount as fees or at free of cost, while the self financing colleges were collecting huge money."
WCC,one of the oldest colleges in Tamil Nadu,established in 1915, submitted that they had appointed 19 Assistant Professors in various disciplines when vacancies arose due to to retirements/resignations,but these were not approved by the education department, despite the university doing so.
WCC said the University had approved the educational qualification of the persons appointed. Once qualification was approved to teachers, appointed in the regular vacancy, the Director/Joint Director of Collegiate education shall give approval for the purse of grant-in-aid. But for reasons best known to them, approval was not accorded.
The judge said he felt that whenever such vacancies arise, they should be filled immediately with qualified teachers and the authorities should accord approval immediately as it was not fair to extract work from teachers without paying salary.
"Here is a case where teachers are appointed in the regular vacancy and they have been working for the past six to seven years.Though the university approved the appointment,the Director and Joint Director of Collegiate Education are yet to approve the appointment. In view of the above, there shall be an order of interim direction", the judge added.
