The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday passed an interim injunction on the notification calling for fresh elections to the Senate of Manonmaniam Sundaranar University in Tirunelveli.
Justice V.Bharathidasan passed the order and posted the case for further hearing on March 6.
The petitioners, a total of 16 teachers from the university and its affiliated colleges, moved the court against the university’s decision to call for fresh elections to the Senate. The Syndicate of the university, in a resolution passed in 1994, resolved that only teachers, whose qualifications are approved by the university are eligible to vote in the Senate elections under the category ‘one member elected by the teachers of each affiliated colleges,’ be approved, the petitioners said.
With the tenure of teacher representatives of the affiliated colleges to the Senate ending in March 2016, a prior notification was issued for the election to the Senate in January 2016. The Principals of the affiliated colleges were directed to send the list of teachers whose qualifications were approved by the university along with a copy of the approval of each teacher in the electoral roll, the petitioners said. The elections were conducted and the results declared were forwarded to the university. However, out of the 52 elected teachers, seven were not approved by the university. A Syndicate sub-committee, which was formed to look into the issue, withdrew the results of the seven members, the petitioners said.
However, the results of the remaining 45 teachers were not announced. The petitioners said that when they wrote to the university to call for a Senate meeting, the Syndicate instead resolved to conduct fresh elections.
