The inclusion of two married couples in the mass wedding of 1,006 couples on June 18 has led to the suspension of a city temple Executive Officer (EO.)
The Madras High Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition by the official challenging the suspension order, and said permitting the married couples to marry again was a very serious delinquency.
The mass wedding was conducted at the Sri Karumariamman Temple, Thiruverkadu, near here, in the presence of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.
According to the petitioner, N. Aravazhi, EO of the Sri Karaneeswarar temple here, it received applications from 17 couples. All these were forwarded to the Saidapet Law and Order Inspector who, after verification, reported that out of the 17 couples, only seven were found eligible.
Mr. Aravazhi said he summoned the seven couples and found two of them were ineligible, as one woman was pregnant and another, already married. Therefore, he forwarded the names of five couples. One couple got married due to the delay in conducting the mass wedding, for which the list had been finalised in March 2012. The wedding of the remaining four couples was conducted on June 18 along with 1002 other couples.
On June 26, the HR and CE Joint Commissioner issued a show-cause notice to him based on a news item published in a Tamil bi-weekly which stated that out of the 100 couples from the Saidapet region, two couples had children at the time of the wedding and the facts were not verified by the petitioner.
The petitioner submitted a reply. He was placed under suspension on June 29. Aggrieved, the petitioner moved the court seeking to quash it.
He said if his explanation was not satisfactory, a regular charge should be framed and he could be suspended only after that. He was in no way responsible as he believed the police report and the certificate issued by the VAO. He had made a criminal complaint against the said couples.
Justice N. Paul Vasanthakumar said there was no selective suspension as alleged by the petitioner. “Permitting the already married couple to marry again, as if no marriage was performed earlier is a very serious delinquency.”
By those marriages, the sanctity of the mass wedding ceremony was subjected to criticism. Whether the petitioner was responsible or had believed the police report and VAO certificate could be gone into only if an enquiry was conducted. At this stage, the court could not presume that the petitioner was innocent.
Whether a government servant was to be placed under suspension and at what stage should be decided by the authorities concerned on the facts and circumstances of the given situation and sufficiency of reasons to suspend a person was available or not could not be gone into by the courts.
