Contempt plea by Alagiri's college against varsity dismissed

Madras High Court Bench here today dismissed a contempt petition filed by an engineering college here, run by a trust owned by former Union minister and DMK leader M K Alagiri, over its prolonged legal battle to secure affiliation from state-owned Anna University.
Justice Rajesh Kumar Agrawal and Justice M Jeychandran said they could not accept the college's claim that contempt of court had been committed by the Registrar of the university by not obeying its earlier order to grant temporary affiliation for 2013-14.
The petitioner, Daya Engineering College run by Alagiri Educational Trust, submitted that the court on May 20, 2013 had ordered the university to grant temporary affiliation after sending an inspection team to verify the infrastructural facilities and pass fresh orders within ten days.

In its counter, the university said that the inspection was held on July 11, 2013 but the college failed to submit certificate from licenced holder for electrical installation, certificate from the health inspector and structural stability certificate.
Besides, there were discrepancies in the survey number of the land provided by the college which also failed to furnish the approval from the Director of Town and country planning.
For want of documents, the inspection committee recommended not to provide affiliation. Based on this, affiliation was not granted by the university.
Counsel for the college alleged that the affiliation was not being given for political reasons and they had rectified the defects pointed by the inspection committee earlier. But the university was coming out with more and more reasons for denying affiliation despite the order from the court.

The college has been waging a legal battle to get affiliation ever since its inception in 2011.