HC to hear Pandey's plea
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, September 18 2018:
Division bench High Court of Manipur has fixed Sept 25 for hearing the writ petition filed by AP Pandey challenging the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) signed between the Union of India, the State Government and Manipur University community for the formation of an enquiry committee.
The writ petition filed by Professor AP Pandey was listed today before the Division bench comprising of Chief Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar and Justice Kh Nobin.
Mention may be made that on September 7, Division bench High Court of Manipur admitted the writ petition and the Court had proposed to fix the next date for consideration after getting a response from all the respondents.
During the course of time, Professor AP Pandey filed a special leave petition before the Supreme Court against the Union of India and Professor Dorendrajit, Registrar in-charge of Manipur University, similar to the one he filed in the High Court of Manipur and the Supreme Court had fixed September 20 for the hearing of SLP.
According to a reliable source, the Division bench, looking after the SLP, opted that it will be contradictory to pass any order at the present stage and fixed September 25 for the next hearing It may be mentioned that the writ petition was filed by Professor AP Pandey through his counsel challenging the MoA signed between MUSU, MUTA and MUSA on one side and the Joint Secretary, MHRD and Commissioner of Higher and Technical Education, Manipur on the other side in the presence of Chief Minister N Biren and his Council of Ministers and MLAs on August 16.The respondents of the petition include the Joint Secretary MHRD, Professor Sh Dorendrajit (Physics Department MU), Registrar (in-charge) MU and the State of Manipur.
The petition stated that the MoA cannot be accepted because it was signed following pressure from the university community and it was also mentioned in the petition that one of the members of the enquiry committee is also a close relative of a MUTA spokesperson and hence the inquiry is likely to be biased.