PREMKUMAR Vs. MAHATMA GANDHI UNIVERSITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Introduction:

(2.) We rendered the judgment on 19th February 2018, made it available the next day 20th February. Soon thereafter, on the very same day, we realised that a Madras High Court's judgment we had extensively referred to K. V. Jeyaraj v. Chancellor of Universities, (2014) 4 CTC 257 stood overruled. True, we did not conclude the case based on that judgment's holding, persuasive as it may have been.

(3.) As we have examined the judgment further, we have realised that Jeyaraj was taken in appeal to the Apex Court. And it was, indeed, reversed in Kalyani Mathivanan v. Jeyaraj, (2015) 6 SCC 36 Adding to our discomfiture, we have, in our judgment, referred to Kalyani Mathivanan, too. To rectify this regrettable faux pau, on 21st February 2018 we informed the counsel concerned that we would be recalling our judgment and render a fresh one. The recalling, we may observe, was only to remove references to the judgment that stood nullified and ceased to exist, for the doctrine of merger applies. Even without K. V. Jeyaraj, we hold, the ratio of our judgment and the case outcome remain unaffected.