MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court recently summoned the commissioner of treasuries and accounts department, Madurai collector, joint director of health services, and joint director of collegiate education in a contempt petition filed by an assistant professor over delay in reimbursement of medical insurance amount for the treatment undergone by his mother in 2016.
The petitioner B Rajesh, who is an assistant professor in a private college in Madurai, had spent Rs 23,200 towards his mother's uterus removal surgery. But citing that the surgery was done in a non-network hospital, his claim seeking reimbursement was rejected by the district-level empowered committee and its president (the district collector), Rajesh alleged, and approached the high court in 2017.
The high court, through an order dated May 28, 2019, had allowed his plea and had directed the authorities to provide reimbursement to him within a month from the date of receipt of the committee's recommendation. But the authorities failed to obey the court's order and instead issued proceedings bringing in conditions that grossly violated the order, Rajesh added and filed the contempt petition.
Justice Battu Devanand, who heard the plea, said he is prima facie satisfied that the above authorities not only disobeyed the court's order, they are also attempting to defeat the order. He directed the Registry to issue a statutory notice to the authorities directing them to appear before the court at the next hearing on July 20.