The Madras High Court Bench here on Monday directed Industries Secretary C.V. Shankar to appear in the court on Tuesday to clarify “lot of doubts” in an enquiry conducted by him into allegations of political interference in the appointment of sweepers and watchmen in government schools in Usilampatti educational district here in 2012.
Justice S. Nagamuthu also wanted to know why the officer did not return the documents, relating to the appointments, which had been given to him last year for conducting the enquiry. “How can the officer file only the report and not return the original files handed over to him through court orders?” the judge asked Additional Advocate General K. Chellapandian.
The judge also pointed out that the court had ordered for the enquiry in September last year with a specific direction to complete it within four weeks. “But the enquiry report dated June 16, 2014, has been filed in this court only on September 15, 2014. The report has been filed in loose sheets and not paginated. Is this how an IAS officer would file a report in court?” he wondered.
Mr. Justice Nagamuthu also said that the enquiry officer had not made any attempt to find out whether recommendation letters reportedly issued in the names of a Minister, Members of Legislative Assembly and a district secretary of the ruling party for the government jobs were actually issued by them or whether someone else had misused the names of these politicians.
“I am not for a moment saying that the Minister or the MLAs did issue the letters. But when the Usilampatti officials had made a file noting that they received a telephonic message from the office of Director of School Education asking them to make appointments on the basis of recommendations, is it not the duty of the enquiry officer to trace the origin of the phone call,” he asked.
The court had ordered for the enquiry following a writ petition filed by a candidate who was denied employment for want of recommendation. On Monday, petitioner’s counsel S. Balamurugan contended that over 5,000 vacancies of watchmen and sweepers were filled across the State in 2012 and there was a possibility of political interference in all of them.
