The Madras High Court Bench here is completing 10 years of its existence on July 24, and there cannot be a better occasion to document the landmark judgments delivered by it.
Justice K. Chandru, former judge of the High Court, has come out with a book on the judgments delivered by him both in Madurai and Chennai.
Penned in Tamil and titled ‘My judgements in the light of Ambedkar,’ the book contains a significant ruling passed by him on September 2, 2008, directing the Madurai Corporation to maintain a common cremation shed for people belonging to all castes at Thathaneri here rather than allotting separate sheds to different caste groups.
The judgment quoted the lyrics of a Tamil song ‘Samarasam Ulavum Idame…’ from the movie Rambaiyin Kadhal, and went on to state: “At least in the departure from this world there should be unity and apartheid may not be practised by the official acts of the Corporation.”
A year later, a Division Bench of the High Court had termed it “a very illuminating judgement.”
In a verdict delivered in March 2007, Mr. Justice Chandru had disapproved of the State transport corporation’s decision to desist from halting government buses near a Dalit colony before entering Sivandhipatti village in Tirunelveli district because the then Superintendent of Police had apprehended law and order problem if Dalits occupied all seats before the Caste Hindus could board the buses. In the same year, he came down heavily on the management of a government-aided private school at Muthusamipuram in Tirunelveli district for objecting to the appointment of a Dalit woman as a noon meal cook. A subsequent verdict delivered by him on the issue in 2010 led to the State government providing reservation for Dalits while appointing noon meal employees.
Other significant decisions delivered by him during his tenure in the Madurai Bench and referred to in the book included the one which thwarted attempts to prevent construction of a public library in Nallur panchayat in Virudhunagar district just because
“Dalits will read books stacked in the library and get enlightened besides having free access to a street leading to the proposed library.”
