CHENNAI: Taking a serious view of alleged misappropriation of Rs 1.5 crore funds meant as compensation for road accident victims by a staff of a Pattukottai court, the Madras High Court on Tuesday appointed district-level nodal officers to inspect all the records pertaining to motor accident cases and to come up with a foolproof and uniform system to prevent such misappropriation.
A special bench of Justices P N Prakash and Abdul Quddhose passed the interim orders on the plea after it was brought to its notice. The court administration appointed three committees - high court inspection committee, 3-member sub judge committee and additional district judge-cum-principal sub judge committee. After perusing the report, the bench passed directions.
In its order, the bench said, “It was noticed that the actual number of fixed deposit receipts pending in the courts did not find a reflection in the ledgers; in hundreds of cases, the transport corporations and insurance companies deposited compensation amounts without mentioning the MCOP case numbers to credit of which they ought to be deposited.”
Since it was brought to the notice of Chief Justice that the situation in other districts also may be no better, the Chief justice constituted the special bench to go into more on the judicial side of the issue and to come up with a foolproof and uniform system throughout the state. The court also appointed N Vijayaraghavan, Advocate, as Amicus Curiae in the plea.
The judges added, “We are of the view that to undertake the massive exercise of cleaning the Augean stables, competent officers of the rank of district judges should be appointed, who must first be given training as to how they should have to proceed with the task of inspection of the records of the MCOP tribunals and set them straight.”