CHENNAI: A bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday deplored the waning reputation of the University of Madras (UoM) and said disciplinary proceedings for ‘capital punishment’ must be initiated against university officials who are devoid of integrity and devotion to duty.
A bench of Justices S Vaidyanathan and AA Nakkiran made the observation while passing orders on writ appeal over promotion of technical staff to assistant librarian posts. The court said a degree from the university was once considered precious, but it is a million dollar question now whether the institute still enjoys that reputation.
The court said, “... appropriate disciplinary proceedings for capital punishment shall be initiated against officials for not maintaining absolute integrity and devotion to duty which is unbecoming of a member of the service and such irresponsible officials should be dismissed from service....”
The bench said the court’s remarks on dereliction of duty should be entered into their service register so that they could be deprived of promotions and other benefits and wanted the umbrella of moral turpitude to be widened to deprive them gratuity too.
The judges said there was no other option but to interfere with the single judge’s order, which has no legs to stand, as the court does not want to continue the illegality forever and two wrongs cannot make a right.
The issue came up after S Baskaran, an assistant technical officer, moved the court saying that he was not considered for promotion while his juniors were promoted to the post of assistant librarian. A single judge had ordered that Baskaran’s name be considered for promotion.