Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

Labour contract: Bench quashes GRH Dean's order

Staff Reporter

Petitioner alleges Dean influenced by MLA's husband

MADURAI: Amidst allegations that the husband of a ruling party MLA, Valarmathi Jebaraj, influenced the Dean of the Government Rajaji hospital here to cancel a labour contract awarded to a private firm, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Friday quashed the cancellation order.

Allowing the writ petition moved by the proprietor of the firm, Justice A. Kulasekaran observed that the authorities ought to have given an opportunity to the firm to explain its stand before cancelling the contract.

In his affidavit filed in support of the petition, S. Deivendran said vacant posts of health workers and other general workers in the Government Rajaji Hospital were filled on contract basis by calling `limited tender' from private firms. Usually the agreement period would be two months.

Accordingly, he won the contract between the middle of May and July and supplied 219 workers to the GRH and its other units. Though the contract got over, the hospital failed to pass the salary bills of the employees and hence he was constrained to pay them. Pending disbursement of bills, the hospital again called for tenders for employing labourers between July 16 and September 15.

The petitioner along with Jebaraj, husband of the MLA, had quoted the same amount of Rs.1,200 per employee and jointly won the contract. The Dean of the hospital, on July 7, directed both of them to pay a security deposit of Rs.1 lakh in a nationalised bank and stated that they could share the contract.

But suddenly, on July 13, the Dean, through another order, cancelled the contract granted to the petitioner on the ground that he had not disbursed the salary to workers, who were employed earlier in the hospital.

M. Ajmal Khan, counsel for the petitioner, said it was a clear case of misuse of power by the spouse of the MLA, who with an intention to gain the entire contract had influenced the Dean to cancel the award granted to the petitioner. The act of the Dean in not granting an opportunity to the petitioner to provide his explanation was against principles of natural justice, he added.

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