The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Madurai News : 10 policemen challenge transfer order

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Oct 16, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Madurai

10 policemen challenge transfer order

By Our Staff Reporter

MADURAI, OCT.15. Ten policemen, including a sub-inspector, today moved the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court challenging an order of the Madurai Commissioner of Police effecting mass transfer of over 50 personnel to other districts.

Hearing a batch of writ petitions, Justice N. Kannadasan posted the matter for further hearing on Wednesday and directed the Special Government Pleader to get instructions from the Commissioner with regard to the case.

Refusing to admit the case at the first instance, however, the Judge told the Special Government Pleader to hold discussions with the police officials and advise them to sympathetically consider their decision to transfer the police constables.

Nine head constables attached to the traffic and crime wings along with the sub-inspector, T. V. Devarajan, attached to the outpost in the Government Rajaji Hospital filed individual petitions before the Bench praying to reinstate them in Madurai city.

The Commissioner of Police, through his order dated October 9, 2004, transferred the policemen, mostly head constables, attached to the city police, to various other districts, including Ramanthapuram, Tirunelveli and Tuticorin.

The order of the Commissioner also stated that they were being transferred on administrative grounds based on the directions by the Inspector General of Police, South Zone. The policemen were relieved with immediate effect.

In their petitions, the head constables alleged that the transfer order had been passed in the wake of the Sivakasi woman, Jayalakshmi's episode and claimed it to be stigmatic in its effect though ostensibly it might not say so.

Pointing out that a constable had been transferred to two districts and that two other constables who were under suspension had also been served with the transfer order, the policemen stated that the authorities had passed orders "mechanically without application of mind".

They also expressed their difficulty in shifting the entire family in the middle of an academic year.

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