COIMBATORE: The Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC) on Friday relieved all 54 junior assistants whose appointments were held illegal by the Madras High Court and subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court.
The employees, who had joined the civic body in 2021, were removed from service following an official order issued by CCMC Commissioner Katta Ravi Teja. The order comes exactly a month after the SC upheld the HC’s ruling directing the cancellation of their appointments.
The appointments had come under scrutiny after sanitary worker Eswari approached the Madras HC, alleging the 54 employees were appointed as junior assistants in violation of recruitment rules, allegedly following the intervention of former AIADMK minister S P Velumani.
In its June 18 order, a division bench comprising justices N Subramanian and Senthilkumar directed the corporation to cancel the appointments, holding that the recruitment had been carried out in violation of the prescribed rules.
Five of the affected employees subsequently approached the SC challenging the HC order. On July 14, a bench comprising justices K V Viswanathan and Arun Palli upheld the HC’s decision. Despite the SC ruling, the employees continued to work in the corporation for nearly a month. The petitioners were considering initiating contempt proceedings against the CCMC if the order was not implemented.
Against this backdrop, Commissioner Katta Ravi Teja issued the removal orders on Friday, formally relieving all 54 employees from their duties. Speaking to TNIE, the commissioner said the corporation had sought a legal opinion from the Directorate of Municipal Administration after the SC order before deciding on the next course of action. “Based on the instructions received, all 54 of them have been relieved from their duties,” he said.
The commissioner added that individual orders had been sent to all 54 employees.
