A Division Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday set aside a judgement passed by a single judge who had observed that “public-private partnership in imparting education will augur well for citizens and also for the cause of social justice.” The Bench also reversed the single judge’s ruling that a constituent medical college of a private university in the State need not be affiliated with Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University.
While allowing a State appeal against the single judge’s verdict, First Division Bench of Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice N. Mala concurred with Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram that the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University Chennai Act of 1987 was a special legislation and therefore its provisions would prevail over the Tamil Nadu Private Universities Act of 2019 which was a general legislation.
The judges held that TN Dr. MGR Medical University was the only institution in the State to have been empowered to grant affiliation to medical colleges through the special legislation enacted in 1987 and therefore the legislature had consciously inserted Section 3(4) in the 2019 Act which states that a private university would be of unitary type and would not have power to affiliate or recognize any college or institution.
“The aforesaid provisions make it clear that affiliation from the Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University is required to be obtained by every medical college or institution,” the Chief Justice wrote while disagreeing with the judgement delivered by the single judge who had allowed a writ petition filed by Srinivasan Medical College and Hospital affiliated to Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan University (DSU) established at Samayapuram in Tiruchi under the 2019 Act.
The college had filed the writ petition since the Directorate of Medical Education had refused to permit its seats to be filled through the common counselling conducted by the government unless it got affiliated with Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University. The single judge ruled against such insistence but on appeal, the Division Bench held that Section 6(1) of the 1987 debars affiliation of a medical college by any university other than the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University.
“The finding of the learned Single Judge cannot be accepted for the reason that there is no power with the private university to give affiliation to any college or institution and, therefore, there is no question of affiliation by two universities...The analysis on the issue in that regard was not made by the learned single judge after giving proper interpretation of the provisions of the laws applicable to the issue,” the Division Bench wrote.
