Madras High Court Bench here has reserved its order on a petition by an engineering college owned by Union Minister and DMK leader M K Alagiri's family seeking provisional affiliation from Anna University for 2012-13 and permission to participate in the counselling for admission. Justice K. Venkataraman reserved its order without mentioning a date after hearing senior counsel for petitioner Daya Engineering College and the Additional Advocate General. The legal battle seeking affiliation of Anna University of Technology began since its inception last year at Sivarakottai on the city outskirts with the college alleging 'malafide intention' behind the deninal of affiliation. The college counsel said the M K Alagiri Educational Trust,in which Alagiri and his family members are trustees,had spent huge amount on constructing it apart from Rs. 1.75 crore spent in the last one year. "We have even appointed the faculty and non-teaching staff and all of them are sitting idle for want of affiliation. It is a clear case of mala fide intention",he contended. Anna University of Technology-Madurai officials inspected the college in July last year and pointed out three deficiencies. The college moved the high court as affiliation was not granted even after these were rectified,he said. Later,a second inspection committee of the AUT insisted on reviewing all facilities in the college,without confining itself to the three deficiencies following which the college approached the court once again. Last month,a Division Bench of the high court ordered the AUT to conduct a fresh inspection on or before May 31 and confine itself to the three deficiencies. But the AUT preferred a Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court challenging the order and it was dismissed. Even then the affiliation was not granted till date,he claimed. Additional Advocate General K Chellapandian contended the college had not permitted the second inspection committee to perform its duty. "We cannot grant affiliation without verifying whether those three deficiencies had been rectified or not. The college claims to have rectified them. But we are yet to ascertain it",he said.
