CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has said a person could be given a job on compassionate grounds if their family is in an indigent situation irrespective of having another earning member. The court refused to reverse the order of a single judge which revoked the dismissal order of a mazdoor of the State health department, after he was sacked for hiding facts to get the job on compassionate grounds.
A Division Bench of Justices S Vaidyanathan and Mohammed Shaffiq passed the orders recently while dismissing an appeal filed by the Deputy Director (DD) of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Institute of Public Health.
The appeal was preferred against the order which revoked the dismissal order of Nagarajan, the mazdoor, who was sacked for hiding the fact that his brother was employed in the same department. He was given the job in 1986 after his mother died in harness.
However, he was sacked after 22 years of service. He filed a writ petition before the High Court in 2008, but died in 2014. Subsequently, his family was impleaded. The single judge, in 2020, ordered revocation of the termination order and disbursal of Nagarajan’s terminal benefits to his legal heirs. The DD challenged the order.
The Bench, in its latest order, noted a government letter in a memo dated May 4, 1978, which authorised the provisions for the appointment on compassionate basis. It ordered the authorities to consider Nagarajan's entire period of service from the date of his initial appointment till the date of his death, as continuous service for the purpose of granting gratuity and pensionary benefits.
Leena Manimekalai's plea rejected
A Chennai court has refused to order transfer of the proceedings of the criminal defamation case filed against poet-filmmaker Leena Manimekalai by director Susi Ganesan. Manimekalai had filed a petition to transfer the case from the IX metropolitan magistrate court in Saidapet to another court, citing biased approach of the magistrate concerned.
Dismissing the plea the court said the accusations against the magistrate were baseless. Meanwhile, Susi Ganesan’s counsel said the trial has to be completed by April as per the directions of the Supreme Court