HC suspends a portion of earlier judgement

Madras High Court has suspended a portion of a judgment delivered on January 29 by another bench directing the official trustee appointed by it to administer the day-to-day functions of PT Lee Chengalvaraya Naicker Trust temporarily, to invite applications for appointing fresh candidates as trustees.
A divison bench comprising Justices R Sudhakar and S Vaidyanathan suspended the operation of the portion of the order on February 18 while passing interim orders on the miscellaneous petition arising out of the original civil suit, from M Balakrishnan and six others, the sitting trustees challenging the January 29 order.
While passing orders on an application from the Trust, the High Court had on October 8, 2014 had appointed Justice AK Rajan, a retired judge of the Madras High Court, as the Chairman and appointed board of trustees to the trust.

However, Justice Rajan resigned from the post of Chairman on grounds of alleged intimidation, harassment and ill-treatment by other trustees and a division bench of Justices S Tamilvanan (now retired) and G Chockalingam accepted his resignation and directed Administrator-General and the Official Trustee of Tamil Nadu to administer temporarily the Board of the trust, on January 29.
The bench had also directed the AG &OT to take all necessary steps to invite applications for appointment to the posts of other trustees, as well.
Challenging this portion of the order, the sitting trustees moved the High Court.

Taking note of the fact that the existing trustees have not been heard and that they have not been removed from the trusteeship and that their term is not over, the direction given by the earlier bench on January 29, 2014 would run contra to the original order dated October 8, 2014, the present bench of Justices Sudhakar and Vaidyanathan suspended the portion of the January 29 order relating to calling for fresh appointments.

"The rights of the existing trustees, who are now before us, have to be considered as their plea of removal without being heard will be in violation of the principles of natural justice," the bench said.
Moreover, the appointment of new trustees would result in chaos between the sitting trustees and the fresh trustees, as the former continue to hold the posts as per the October 2014 order, the bench added and posted the matter for further hearing to February 25.