MADURAI
A Division Bench of Justices M. Venugopal and Abdul Quddhose on Monday issued notice to Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department and Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department in connection with a contempt petition.
The petitioner, advocate R. Rajaselvan, sought a direction against the State authorities for failing to pay the pending cess amount to the district library authorities.
He said the High Court Bench had earlier directed the Principal Secretaries of Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department and Rural and Panchayat Raj Department to take effective steps to pay the library cess to the district library authorities within six months. Since the authorities failed to do so, the contempt petition was filed, said the petitioner.
In the original writ petition, the petitioner had said that libraries in the State were struggling with insufficient books, lack of drinking water, toilets and other infrastructure facilities. There were salary arrears to be paid to daily wage workers. If the library cess was remitted the issues plaguing the libraries could be solved, he had contended.
Under Section 12 of the Tamil Nadu Public Libraries Act, 1948, city corporations, municipalities and local bodies were bound to remit the library cess to the district library authorities throughout the State, the petitioner had contended.
The case was posted to December 8 for further hearing.
