High level panel to hold talks with American College factions

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High level panel to hold talks with American College factions

To resolve the row over managing the college

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Meeting with management factions to be held on April 18
Eighty per cent of students regularly attending classes

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MADURAI: A high level committee constituted by the State Government on February 18, under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary, to resolve the row over managing the American College here has decided to hold a meeting with the two factions of the college management on April 18.
The committee comprising Home Secretary and Higher Education Secretary would also meet the Inspector General of Registration Department, concerned with registration of societies, in the second week of April in order to clarify the legal issues involved in resolving the disputes.

The information about the proposed meetings was disclosed before the Madras High Court Bench here on Tuesday. The court was seized of a writ petition filed by a girl student seeking the intervention of the high level committee to ensure peaceful functioning of the college. Justice K. Venkataraman closed the writ petition after recording the contents of a letter written by the Higher Education Secretary K. Ganesan to the Additional Advocate General on April 1 informing about the steps proposed to be taken by the committee.
The letter stated that the first meeting of the committee was initially scheduled on March 11. But it could not be held due to the pre-occupation of the Chief Secretary. Thereafter, the committee met on March 29 and took three important decisions besides resolving to meet again on April 18/

The first decision taken at the March 29 meet was to request the Vice-Chancellor of Madurai Kamaraj University to explore the possibility of postponing the examinations for the American College students by a month after giving due notice to the students so that they could prepare themselves.
Secondly, it was decided to direct the Director of Collegiate Education to examine the possibility of disbursement of salary to the teaching and non-teaching staff of the college after devising some mechanism by which the attendance of the staff could be verified.

“The salaries of the college staff have not been disbursed since December 2010 because of the dispute regarding the validity of the nomination of the Secretary of the Governing Council of the college… These staff must be paid for their work. They cannot be left in lurch,” the minutes of the meeting read.
The third decision taken by the committee was to take up other issues related to the college in consultation with the Registration Department and to hold its second meeting in the second week of April. Mr. Justice Venkataraman also disposed of another writ petition filed by a second year B.Sc., Mathematics student, seeking a direction to the College to conduct the language classes without any disruption, after recording a statement made by R. Mohan, Principal (in-charge).

In his counter affidavit, Mr. Mohan had said that he had deputed 12 teachers to handle the language classes. “Eighty per cent of the 3,000 students of the college were regularly attending the college and it is functioning smoothly without any complaints from any quarters,” he claimed.


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Date:06/04/2011 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2011/04/06/stories/2011040660960300.htm