CHENNAI: Corruption is rampant in all government departments and is gnawing at the society like termites, observed Madras High Court. “In the olden days, bribe was demanded in revenue, registration, and corporation departments for doing extra work. Of late, corruption exists in almost all the departments because of the quiescent attitude of higher officials,” said a Division Bench of justices S Viadyanathan and AA Nakkiran.
The bench made the observations on Thursday while upholding a single judge’s order revoking the suspension of a policeman, Baskaran, caught in a bribery case in Madurai in 2014. The single judge had revoked the suspension on the grounds that higher officials concerned failed to initiate departmental proceedings against the policeman.
Disposing of the writ appeals filed by Additional Director General of Police and the Madurai City Police Commissioner, the bench said it was not known as to what prevented the officers from initiating departmental proceedings against the petitioner, charged with the “serious and grave offence” of taking bribe, and allowed to wander scot-free for quite a long time. Though the bench ordered police department to reinstate the policeman by November end, it said the department may initiate departmental action against him.
Stressing that officials in charge of initiating departmental action must be taught to do so in time, the bench said the order is applicable not only to the police department but also all government departments. It asked the chief secretary and the DGP to issue instructions to all the departments to distinguish between ‘ordinary suspension’ and ‘suspension on account of arrest and remand pursuant to registration of a criminal case’.
The court also ordered that if an officer, responsible for initiating departmental action against a delinquent personnel, fails to do so, they should not be promoted, and if promoted, the officer should be reverted to his old post.
Relief to tribals
Chennai: The State government informed the Madras High Court that community certificates for tribal people would be issued online as given to Scheduled Castes (SC), Backward Classes (BC), and Most Backward Classes (MBC). Commissioner of Revenue Administration (CRA) K Phanindra Reddy issued the direction to district collectors recently, which was submitted before the HC