Calcutta, March 19: The high court today issued arrest warrants against three former members of the Burdwan University executive council for not appearing in court even after being handed a contempt notice.

Those facing arrest are former public service commission chairman Chittaranjan Maity and retired college teachers Mrinal Kanti Ghosh and Himachal Chakraborty.

The court had ordered the university to appoint 12 senior technical assistants as teachers and give them all benefits that go with the post. The first part of the order was followed but not the second. The 12 neither got the teachers’ pay nor the perks.

On February 20, Justice D. Kargupta had asked the three to appear before it today along with 26 other former council members. Seventeen did. One member was exempted because he had cancer and eight others said they had not received the notice.

Maity, Ghosh and Chakraborty had received the notice but they did not turn up in court.

The judge directed Calcutta police commissioner Goutam Mohan Chakrabarti to produce Maity and Chakraborty before the court. The Hooghly police chief was told to fetch Ghosh (he stays in Hooghly) on April 16.

The university’s lawyer, Manish Sen, said: “The notices were sent to the offices where the three worked at that time. For instance, the notice asking Maity to attend court was sent to the public service commission, where he was chairman. A commission employee had received the notice but Maity was completely unaware of it.”

Among the 17 in court today were vice-chancellor Amit Kumar Mallick and registrar Sarashi Mohan Dawn and former vice-chancellor Dilip Kumar Bose and registrar Milan Kumar Chatterjee.

All of them and the cancer patient were exempted from attending the court in the future.

The technical assistants had moved the high court in 1996. The court ruled in their favour in 1998.