MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Friday directed the Secretary to Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department of the State to initiate disciplinary action against public servants who commit bigamy. Passing the order while rejecting a petition filed by the second wife of a deceased police personnel seeking pension benefits equivalent to the first wife, Justice SM Subramaniam directed the government to issue guidelines to all government departments to enter the name of spouse in the service records of public servants only after verifying the genuineness of the information.
“In spite of the Conduct Rules stating that bigamous marriage is misconduct and an offence under the Indian Penal Code, the authorities competent of the various departments are absolutely insensitive towards such issues,” the judge observed. “The consequences of such insensitivity results in denial of livelihood to the other woman, who married the public servant as second wife, without even knowing the consequences,” he added.
Hence a foolproof procedure should be adopted by the State for entering name of the nominees in the service records of the public servants, opined the judge and gave the above directions. The petition was filed by one R Thenmozhi seeking direction to provide the deceased husband’s retirement benefits to her and the first wife of her husband proportionately. However, her claim was rejected as her name was not entered as nominee in the service records of her husband.
Med aspirant denied admission gets relief
Madurai: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Friday directed the State government to grant admission to a medical aspirant, whose candidature under SC category was rejected based on ‘nativity rules’, after verifying his community status. Justice R Suresh Kumar passed the order on the petition filed by one P Karuppasamy.
The judge noted that the reasons cited by the Selection Committee for refusing admission were due to the fact that his parents were from Sri Lanka and he had studied in Karnataka. The government also questioned the community certificate of the petitioner alleging that the petitioner’s SC community status is in Karnataka but not in Tamil Nadu. However, the judge rejected the contentions of the State. “If one wing of the State conferred a communal and nativity status to a person, another wing of the very same instrumentality of the State cannot reject it without any valid reason,” the judge said.