The Madras High Court Bench here has criticised a few higher officials in the Agriculture Department for having taken 13 years to issue charge memos to three of its employees and 27 years to impose punishment for having allegedly not properly nurtured coconut saplings procured and planted in the financial year 1984-85.
Justices S. Manikumar and G. Chockalingam said: “We only wish to observe that ‘might’ should not think that it is always right. The officer who had imposed the punishment ought to have considered that if he was in the same situation, of a ‘Damocles Sword,’ hanging over his head, for 27 years, what would have been his case, to be put forth?”
The observations were made while dismissing, by a common judgment, a batch of three writ appeals filed jointly by Principal Secretary, Agriculture Department and Commissioner of Agriculture challenging a judgment passed by a single judge of the High Court on April 22, 2014 in favour of the three Agricultural Officers M. Sampath, M. Premkumar and P. Palanichamy.
The judges agreed with the employees’ counsel S. Visvalingam that “non consideration of the petitioners for promotion to higher posts, on account of pendency of disciplinary proceedings, for a long period of 27 years itself, is a penalty, and hardship caused to them. The government has indirectly inflicted a punishment of postponement of the promotion of the writ petitioners.”
Writing the judgment for the Division Bench, Mr. Justice Manikumar pointed out that the three employees had been issued with charge memos only in 1998 and imposed with a punishment of withholding of annual increment for 18 months with cumulative effect only in 2011.
The inordinate delay in initiating as well as concluding the disciplinary proceedings had not been explained satisfactorily.
