Tangedco woman employee gets relief from HC after 16 years.
Chennai: Rulling up officials of Tangedco for sleeping over 16 years and placing a woman employee under suspension, on the last day of her retirement on the grouÂnd that her community certificate was still unÂder verification, the MaÂdras high court set aside the suspension ordÂer and direcÂted Tangedco to grant full pension and other terminal benefits to her.
“For the failure and inaction on the part of Tangedco, the petitioner cannot be made to suffer and be denied of benefit. The action of Tangedco is, therefore, arbitrary in nature”, said a division bench comprising Justices R Sudhakar and Pushpa Sathyanarayana while disposing of a petition from R Amutha.
According to Amutha, she belongs to the Konda Reddi community, a Scheduled Tribe and obtained a community certificate in 1981. In February 1986, the Trichy collector, without affording an opportunity to her, sent a report to Tangedco that she did not belong to the Konda Reddi community. She approached the high court, which in 1997, set aside the order, granting liberty to the collector to conduct verification afresh. While so, on the last day of her service (May 13, 2013), she was placed under suspension and was not allowed to retire.
Writing the judgment for the Bench, Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana said that though this court had directed the district collector and revenue authorities to conduct an enquiry about the community of the petitioner way back in 1997, Tangedco had not taken any action till May 2013. Having slept over for more than 16 years, Tangedco cannot be allowed to take advantage of its own wrong at the fag end of her service.
The authorities were directed to grant full pension and all other admissible terminal benefits to her, the bench added, and made it clear that this order will not stand in the way of Tangedco from making a reference to the district collector concerned for enquiry and report.
( Source : dc )
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