An employee of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has moved the Madras High Court Bench here challenging the refusal of a Judicial Magistrate in Valliyoor in Tirunelveli district to order registration of a case against two top officials of the organisation under the provisions of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989.
B. Anna Thurai (47), serving as Senior Technical Assistant ‘A’ at ISRO’s Propulsion Complex at Mahendragiri hills in Tirunelveli district, alleged that he was being harassed by his superiors in numerous ways for long since he had created an association for Dalit employees in the organisation, got it registered and was functioning as its general secretary.
Claiming that technical staff of the organisation could not be transferred from one station to another without a voluntary request made by them, the petitioner accused his superiors of having prepared a fabricated requisition to get him transferred from Mahendragiri to ISRO’s Space Applications Centre at Ahmedabad in Gujarat. Since the act of the officials amounted to perpetrating atrocities against a Dalit, he lodged a criminal complaint against them with the Tirunelveli police. When the police failed to act, he lodged a private complaint.
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The Judicial Magistrate too dismissed the complaint for want of prima facie materials and hence the present revision petition.
When the revision came up for hearing on Thursday, Justice A. M. Basheer Ahamed permitted the petitioner’s counsel T. Lajapathi Roy and I. Pinaygash to issue private notice to the two officials and directed a government counsel to obtain instructions from the Tirunelveli SP and his subordinates.