MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court recently directed the departments of agricultural engineering and geology and mining to look into whether further disciplinary proceedings need to be initiated against three officers who aided a Kerala man in illegally excavating sand from the banks of Thamirabarani river and transporting them to Kerala in 2022.
Justice B Pugalendhi gave the direction on a petition filed by one of the officers, R Ponnudurai, who is an assistant engineer in the agricultural engineering department, seeking to revoke his suspension in view of the conclusion of his disciplinary proceedings in the above case.
The judge noted that the initial charges framed against him by the inquiry officer on technical grounds were proved and he was punished with a stoppage of increment. However, the CB-CID filed a final report in the case in July last year, which included additional charges against the petitioner and two more officials including an assistant director of geology and mining department.
Due to this, Ponnudurai's request for revocation of suspension was rejected by the government, the judge noted. Though he did not find fault with the government's decision, he noted that the office cannot be indefinitely placed under suspension without extracting any work from him.
Further observing that slackness in initiating disciplinary proceedings and taking action as against the erring officials would only embolden the other officials to indulge in such activities, the judge directed the authorities to look into whether further disciplinary proceedings need to be initiated against the petitioner and similarly placed officials or if their suspension could be revoked and take a decision at the earliest.
According to the CB-CID report, Manuvel George, a resident of Kerala, had obtained m-sand stock yard licence and transport permit with the help of officials from the geology and mining department. He then dug up bogus farm ponds with the help of the officials like the petitioner on non-agricultural lands near the river and illegally transported sand to Kerala using the m-sand permits with the connivance of the other accused and officials.
Now that the final report has been filed, the judge instructed CB-CID to ensure that the trial is concluded at the earliest.
