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.
