Coming across a case where a retired court staff of Thanjavur district had misappropriated more than ₹1.5 crore of Motor Accident Claims compensation to be disbursed, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court directed the inquiry proceedings against him to be conducted on a day to day basis.
A Division Bench of Justices S. Vaidyanathan and G. Jayachandran dismissed the petition filed by Thinagaraja, a retired court staff at the Thanjavur court. He sought the quash of the notice issued by the Principal District Judge, Thanjavur. The PDJ had sought a written statement from the petitioner. The court imposed a cost of ₹5,000 on the petitioner.
The court observed that substantial time was granted to the petitioner to reply to the notice. However, he had not availed himself the opportunity and chose to file the petition before the High Court to quash the notice. The judges observed that this was only a dilatory tactic to delay the inquiry proceedings and nothing else. Earlier, he had filed a similar petition before the High Court but later chose to withdraw it.
The court said that if the inquiry proceedings had been initiated it should be held on a day to day basis without adjourning the matter beyond seven working days at any point of time and bring the issue to a logical conclusion at the earliest. Till the final orders are passed by the authorities, the petitioner cannot approach the court to stall the proceedings, the judges said.
