The main legal point established in the judgment is the application of Section 19(3) of the Tamil Nadu Private Colleges Regulation Act to a minority college and the balancing of the rights of the petitioner with the severity of the complaints and the rights of the students and teachers who complained of sexual harassment.

1. The petitioner is the Principal of the MSS Wakf Board College, Madurai. The petitioner has challenged the order of suspension dated 27-09-2003 on the ground that any suspension which exceeds the period of two months is bad in view of Section 19(3) of the Tamil Nadu Private Colleges Regulation Act (“Act” in short) and he should be restored to service. An ex parte order of stay was granted and the College filed two petitions to vacate the stay and to suspend the ex parte order. When the interim petitions came up, by consent, the main writ petition itself was taken up for final disposal.

2. The learned counsel for the petitioner would submit that the first respondent is a minority college. While certain provisions of the Act do not apply to the first respondent by virtue of Section 24 in Association of University Teachers v. State of Tamil Nadu (1991 I L.W. 180, the Division Bench of this Court held that Section 24(3) insofar as it excludes the application of Section 19(3)(a) and (b) of the Act to a minority college is ultra vires of Article 14 of the Constitution. Therefore, Section 19(3)(a) and (b) apply to the respondent college, though it is a minority institution It was submitted, that if that is so, the respondent has no authority to keep the petitioner under suspension beyond the period stipulated in Section 19(3) and therefore, the writ petition must be allowed.

3. The learned Additional Advocate General, Mr. R. Muthukumarasamy, appearing on behalf of the respondents would submit that, while it is true that the Division Bench held Section 19(3)(a) and (b) apply to minority institution, the matter has been taken up to the Supreme Court. In State of Karnataka v. Dr. T.M.A. Pai Foundation (2003 (6) SCC 790), the various orders of the High Courts were set aside and the matters remitted for fresh consideration. Independent of that, it was submitted that the petitioner had been charged with committing acts of misconduct which included sexual harassment and therefore, the petitioner had to be suspended from acting as Principal since the complainants apprehended adverse consequences if the petitioner were to resume charge as “Principal”. It was also submitted that the necessity to restrain the petitioner from acting as “Principal” was even more urgent because the independent enquiry officer had found him guilty of several of the charges. The learned Additional Advocate General drew the nice distinction between the three kinds of suspension, suspension as punishment, suspension pending enquiry, and suspension which amounts to forbidding the servant from doing the work while keeping in tact the masters obligation. For this purpose, he relied on V.P. Gindroniya v. State of Madhya Pradesh (AIR 1970 SC 1494) and the Supreme Court considered the various kinds of suspension and observed as follows:

“Three kinds of suspension are known to law. A public servant may be suspended as a mode of punishment or he may be suspended during the pendency of an enquiry against him if the order appointing him or statutory provisions governing his service provide for such suspensions. Lastly he may merely be forbidden from discharging his duties during the pendency of an enquiry against him which is also called suspension. The right to suspend as a measure of punishment as well as the right to suspend the contract of service during the pendency of an enquiry are both regulated by the contract of employment or the provisions regulating the conditions of service. But the last category of suspension referred to earlier is the right of the master to forbid his servant from doing the work which he had to do under the terms of the contract of service or the provisions governing his conditions of service at the same time keeping in force the masters obligations under the contract. In other words the master may ask hi s servant to refrain from rendering his service but he must fulfil his part of the contract”.

4. It is indeed depressing that person