Chennai :

Academics and jurists are waiting with bated breath, even as Madras high court is busy finalizing the list of trustees to run the 140 year old P T Lee Chengalvaraya Naicker Trust, which has institutions and properties valued at more than Rs 1,000 crore in Chennai and Kancheepuram districts. To this day, the HSBC Bank is sending dividend amount ranging from Rs 51 lakh to Rs 1.1 crore to the trust every year. Such was the vision of the man.

At the time of his death, philanthropist Chengalvaraya Naicker was barely 45 years old. But he had bequeathed all his wealth with an intention to establish educational institutions and orphanages. As on date, the trust runs at least a dozen institutions and has properties on Anna Salai, Vepery, Royapettah, Choolai and Kancheepuram district.

A division bench of Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice K Ravichandrabaabu is slated to pass orders in the matter in a day or two.

Though more than five teams of trustees have had their full tenures in the past, the quality and volume of activities at the trust-run institutions have been steadily declining, say academics. “This year only a handful of students have joined our engineering college near Kancheepuram though we do not collect any capitation and we have good facilities,” he said, blaming the trustees’ misplaced priorities for the poor condition of the institutions. A former chairman suggested that the trust donate Rs 51 lakh to a city temple, while another wanted to sell a trust property at Mint street for a throwaway price, he rued. Another chairman appropriated all powers of all trustees, resulting in an internal revolt, while a chairman diverted all fixed deposit funds of the trust to a bank and branch of his personal choice.

“Malgovernance, rampant corruption and favouritism, besides discrimination of non-Vanniar staff members and employees at the trust and the trust-run institutions are causes of concern,” a jurist associated with the trust proceedings for a long time told The Times of India. Though the decree nowhere states that the retired HC judge who would head the team of trustees should be only from Vanniar community, for the past few terms only such candidates are being considered, resulting in the contraction of choices, he said.

Precious pieces of land such as the one in Royapettah are under illegal encroachment, and the trustees have not taken steps to get back Rs 2 crore from Pachaiyappa’s trust, a lawyer said, adding that the engineering college is deliberately being pushed into oblivion.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by A. Subramani,  TNN / September 18th, 2014