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WA No. 194 of 2026

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS

DATED: 29-01-2026

CORAM

THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE R. SURESH KUMAR

AND

THE HON'BLE MRS.JUSTICE K. GOVINDARAJAN THILAKAVADI

WA No. 194 of 2026

and CMP.Nos. 1776 & 1777 of 2026

R.Balamurugan

..Appellant

Vs

1. The Secretary to Government,

Higher Education Department,

Fort St. George,Chennai-8.

2. The Commissioner,

Directorate of Technical Education,

Sardar Patel Street,

Guindy, Chennai-600 032.

3. Annamalai University,

Represented by its Registrar,

Annamalai Nagar,

Chidambaram,

Cuddalore District,

Pin-608 002

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WA No. 194 of 2026

4. Alagappa Chettiar Government College of

Engineering and Technology,

Karaikudi.

..Respondent(s)

Writ Appeal filed under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent to set aside

the order dated 26.11.2025 in W.P.No.40805 of 2025 in so far as it does not

quash the redeployment of the appellant with the 4^th respondent and

consequently quash the order of redeployment in entirety as prayed for in

W.P.No.40805 of 2025 and thus render justice.

For Appellant : S.Ramesh

For Respondents : Mr.A.Selvendran

Special Government Pleader [R1 & R2]

Judgment

(Judgment of the Court was delivered by R.Suresh Kumar J.)

This intra-court appeal has been directed against the order passed by the

Writ Court dated 26.11.2025 made in W.P.No.40805 of 2025. In fact, the

impugned order was a common order, where number of writ petitions like the

present one have been disposed of.

2. The writ petitioners including the present appellant/ writ petitioner were

teaching faculties of the Annamalai University. The Annamalai University was

established in the year 1928 under the private management by a legislation

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WA No. 194 of 2026

called Annamalai University Act. Thereafter, during the year 2013, due to

unrest, as there has been a severe financial crisis to meet both the ends by the

University Management as number of teaching and non-teaching faculties

swelled into several thousands, the University Management was not able to pay

salary, therefore there has been a complete unrest. With the result, the same had

to be taken over by the State Government by bringing a legislation called

Annamalai University Act, 2013.

3. After the Annamalai University Act, 2013 was enacted, a Special Officer

was appointed, subsequently, regular Vice-Chancellor also had been appointed

and the complete management had come under the control of the State

Government. In other words, we can say that the Annamalai University has

become a full fledged State University created by an Act of legislature. As an

austerity measure, to streamline the financial position and to improve the

financial position and well being run of the institution several steps had been

taken by the Management of the University. One such important step taken by

the University Management was to identify the excess staff working in the

teaching as well as the non-teaching category and to redeploy them in various

Government and Governmental institutions to continue to work in those

institutions on deputation basis for three years within the meaning of Section 19

of 2016 Act.

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WA No. 194 of 2026

4. When such a decisions were taken by issuing a Government Order in

G.O(D).No.217, Higher Education (H1) Department, dated 20.08.2025

redesignating and redeploy some of the teaching faculties, those teaching

faculties including the appellant/writ petitioner had approached the Writ Court

by filing the writ petitions.

5. The learned Writ Court having heard the writ petitioners as well as the

University, has come to the conclusion that the redesignation of the writ

petitioners to a lower cadre and refixing and reducing their pay scale was

considered to be an illegal one. Therefore, it was declared so and a set of

directions have also