The Hindu : `Dismissals cannot be challenged before Administrative Tribunal'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 08, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

`Dismissals cannot be challenged before Administrative Tribunal'

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI JULY 7. The issue of mass, summary dismissal of government servants cannot be challenged before the Tamil Nadu Administrative Tribunal, as it has only one member — the Vice-Chairman I. David Christian — as on date, Nalini Chidambaram, senior counsel, told the Madras High Court today.

Appearing for the Tamil Nadu Secretariat Officers Association, she said a single member had no jurisdiction to hear a case. When she said no order had been passed under Section 5(6) of the Administrative Tribunal Act, empowering the single member to hear all cases, the Advocate-General, N.R. Chandran, pointed out that the then Chairman delegated such a power to the Vice-Chairman through an administrative order.

To this, Ms. Chidambaram said if such an `omnibus order' had been passed without specifying the case or category of cases, it would be unconstitutional and illegal.

It would defeat the tenor and spirit of the Tribunals Act as well as the purpose for which tribunals were established.

She submitted that the fundamental rights and constitutional rights of the government employees had been violated by the impugned ordinance, which was liable to be struck down.

"The constitutional right of enquiry and reasonable opportunity before dismissal cannot be tampered with by legislation," she said. As the Government stated that the legislation would come into effect from April 23, 2003, it was a "retroactive legislation, which is per se illegal".

The former government pleader, R. Viduthalai, arguing for a public interest litigation filed by the DMK MP, C. Kuppusamy, argued that there was no notification prohibiting the strike. Citing last year's First Bench order on `one-man-one-post law', which was sought to be invoked to dislodge the former Mayor of Chennai, M.K. Stalin, counsel said an ordinance taking retrospective effect was not maintainable in the eye of law. Moreover, when the livelihood of employees is taken away through dismissals, Article 21 concerning the Fundamental Right comes into place, he added.

Counsel for the TN Cooperative Subordinate Officers Association, S.M. Subramaniam, said the number of dismissals, which was only 1,400 on the day the petition was filed, went up to about 1 lakh by July 5. But for the intervention and direction of Justice P.D. Dinakaran, many more would have been removed from service, he added.

The Advocate-General reiterated the government stance that the arrested persons could not claim any `separate judicial process', and had to approach a magistrate court for bail. He clarified that all the arrests were not made during midnights and offered to submit details pertaining to the nature of offences and the circumstances leading to those arrests.

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