Single judge order on reinstating suspended Loyola College professor upheld

CHENNAI: A division bench of the Madras High Court upheld the order of a single judge, which set at naught an action of the management of Loyola College in Nungambakkam suspending the services of a professor and ordering his reinstatement.

“We are of the considered view that the finding given by the single judge need not be interfered with as it does not suffer from any illegality or irregularity. Accordingly, it is confirmed,” the bench consisting of Justices Huluvadi G Ramesh and RMT Teekaa Raman said and dismissed a writ appeal from the management.

According to advocate P Chandrasekaran, Dr V Joseph was suspended from service by an order dated December 7, 2017 of the college. The charges against him were that he had made a defamatory statement in an anonymous letter against another woman professor. During the pendency of the enquiry, he was placed under suspension. Challenging this, he filed a writ petition and a single judge on January 23 last set aside the suspension order and directed the college to reinstate him.
Aggrieved, the college put forth the present writ appeal.

Chandrasekaran pointed out that there was an unexplained delay of 45 days in filing the complaint against Prof Joseph. Though it was an anonymous letter, the management had attributed the same to Dr Joseph and suspended him for nine months and when he resumed the work after serving the suspension order and a domestic enquiry, headed by a retired district judge, was in progress, the management once again penalised him with another suspension order on ‘imaginary grounds.’
Chandrasekaran contended that the anonymous letter dated November 28, 2017 was a false and fabricated one and the punishment was nothing but a ruse to harass Joseph.

Plea to detain Raja under Goondas Act rejected

Chennai: The Madras HC on Thursday rejected a plea for a direction to detain BJP national secretary H Raja under the Goondas Act for his utterances against Dravidian movement leader E V R Periyar. When the criminal original petition from Anoor Jagadeesan, president of Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam came up, Justice M S Ramesh wondered how the court can order so and wanted his counsel to explain under which provision the court can do it.