AN adjournment in life High Court yesterday of an application to appoint an examiner to the Advanced Technology College (ATC) Merrion Square, Dublin, is to be appealed in the Supreme Court tomorrow.
In the High Court yesterday morning, the application for the appointment of an examiner by the students was adjourned until March 21st.
Later Dr Michael Forde SC, for the students, went to the Supreme Court to apply to appeal the decision to adjourn. The Chief Justice, Mr Justice Hamilton, said the application will be heard tomorrow morning. In the High Court Mr Justice Kelly adjourned the application when told that newspaper advertisements informing the public of yesterday's application had not contained the time it was to be heard.
The judge said the petition should be re advertised to state specifically that it would be heard at 11 a.m. on March 21st.
He said that if he dealt with the case in the morning, people might come to court that afternoon, not knowing what time it was due to be heard.
However, Mr Justice Kelly set this Thursday for a hearing for the appointment of an interim examiner.
In the Supreme Court Dr Forde said they wanted to appeal the decision on grounds that the High Court judge erred in stating that the requisite newspaper adverts were defective because they did not state a time of day the petition was to be presented.
They are also appealing the judge's decision that the statutory declaration of service made by the petitioner's solicitor was insufficient proof of service, notwithstanding that the solicitor undertook to make such a declaration on affidavit.
The third ground of appeal was that the judge had stated the company's directors had insufficient notice of the presentation of such petition, notwithstanding that on March 4th, 1997, they had retained a solicitor to act for them.
Dr Forde said he wanted to apply for the appeal to be heard before the hearing for the appointment of an interim examiner on Thursday. ATC has some 500 students, some of whom were in court yesterday.