High court appoints former judge Rajeswaran to head PT Lee Trust

TNN | Updated: Nov 12, 2017, 00:01 IST

Chennai: The Madras high court has appointed former judge of the court, Justice S Rajeswaran, as chairman of PT Lee Chengalvaraya Naicker Trust, one of the biggest and richest in the state.

The court has also appointed nine trustees to assist the chairman, and empowered him to report deviant behaviour of trustees, if any, to the court.

Justice R Subramanian passed the order while allowing an application moved by the trust for appointment of a chairman for its administration.

This apart, the court also rejected an objection raised by P T Lee Chengalvaraya Naicker Polytechnic College Staff Association that as per the composition of the board of trustees, there could only be four persons from the Vanniyar community.

"There is no such prescription in the scheme decree. While appointing trustees under the scheme decree, this court can only consider the desirability or suitability of the candidates, who had applied. A perusal of the entire set of 101 applications, shows that 98 applications are from people belonging to Vanniyar community. The scheme decree does not prescribe that the Vanniyar community should not have a representation of more than four people. If there are no applicants from the other communities, this court cannot go in search of persons and invite them to file the applications to be nominated as trustees," the judge said.

The court then directed the newly appointed trustees to take charge November 15 and posted the plea to November 17 for reporting compliance.