The State government has appointed Justice K. Chandru, retired judge of Madras High Court as the chairman of a fee-fixation committee for private agricultural colleges in the State. His name was nominated by Chief Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi.
Apart from the chairperson, the committee comprises of a Member Secretary and seven other members. Agriculturist OVR. Somasundaram of Odayakulam in Pollachi Taluk of Coimbatore district has been named as one of the members.
According to a Government Order issued by the Agriculture Department on January 7, the Supreme Court had, in August 2003, ordered the constitution of committees headed by retired High Court judges to fix fees for students admitted in private professional educational institutions.
Subsequently, by virtue of Section 2(e) of the Tamil Nadu Admission in Professional Educational Institutions Act of 2006, the government, in May 2007, notified all courses in agriculture as well as allied subjects in undergraduate level as professional educational courses. The Tamil Nadu Admission in Agricultural Institutions Rules of 2007 were also framed. Accordingly, the government had now constituted a committee to fix the fee structure for students studying in institutions affiliated to Tamil Nadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore.
Its chairman, Justice Chandru, had served as a judge of the Madras High Court from July 31, 2006 to March 8, 2013. In less than seven years, he had disposed of more than 96,000 cases of which judgements delivered in over 1,500 cases were reported in law journals.
During his stint as a lawyer and also a designated senior counsel, he had extensive practice in labour, service, education and human rights issues. He had appeared for many universities as well as the University Grants Commission (UGC) in several cases.
