CHENNAI: After realising that unemployment was worse than doing menial jobs like cleaning the latrine in the house of a subordinate judge, a class IV employee in judicial service knocked on the doors of Madras High Court for re-employment.
A division Bench of Justices Satish K Agnihotri and M Venugopal expressed its inability to help M Mohammed Akbar Basha as his resignation had been accepted by his superior and he was relieved from duty.
Basha was appointed as a night watchman in the court of Judicial Magistrate-VII, Coimbatore through the local employment exchange. On February 11, 2013, he was promoted as office assistant and posted at Manapparai. Later, he was transferred to the Judicial Magistrate Court-I (FTC), Coimbatore.
As he was allegedly ill-treated and made to do domestic work, including cleaning the latrine, that too on holidays, he became desperate and tendered his resignation on June 6, 2013. But his superior, the CJM, did not accept it and treated his absence as leave on loss of pay. When he reiterated his plea on January 31, 2014, the CJM accepted the resignation on February 5 and relieved him with effect from February 1, 2014. Hence, the present writ petition.
Dismissing it, the Bench said the petitioner had submitted his letter of resignation owing to his family problems. After such a long time he could not take an altogether different stand that he had tendered the resignation because of depression and frustration.
In short, the plea of depression and frustration was only a ruse to overcome the predicament of joblessness which he experienced now, the Bench said.