The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Madras High Court orders reinstatement of employees

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 01, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Madras High Court orders reinstatement of employees

Special Correspondent

3-member panels to go into disputes relating to community certificates The Bench asks the Government to consider having an appellate authority so that aggrieved persons would have another remedy before coming to the High Court.

CHENNAI: Recording a State Government statement that it has constituted three-member committees in districts to consider afresh all disputes relating to community certificates, a Division bench of the Madras High has ordered reinstatement of the employees who lost their jobs pursuant to the cancellation orders passed by two-member district-level committees.

A large number of writ petitions had been filed in the High Court stating that as per the Supreme Court order, three-member committees at the district level alone could pass orders on community certificates.

When the matter came up before a Bench comprising Justice R. Balasubramanian and Justice T.V. Masilamani, Additional Advocate-General R. Muthukumarasamy submitted that the Government had reconstituted the panels in accordance with the law laid down by the apex court and these issues would considered afresh by the panels.

Counsel for the petitioners submitted that if such cancellation was set aside their dismissals would be unsustainable and hence they should be reinstated in service. The Additional Advocate-General, however, maintained that the court must order status quo and the petitioners must await final orders of the newly constituted committees. Concurring with the petitioners, the Bench said: "Once the order cancelling the community certificate is quashed on the ground that the committee which passed the order had no authority to pass such an order, the dismissal based on such a cancellation would automatically go, resulting in the reinstatement of the employee concerned."

But the Bench said such employees would not be entitled to backwages, though they would get the last-drawn pay as salary till the new committee decided the validity of the cancellation certificate. The Bench then asked the Government to consider having an appellate authority so that aggrieved persons would have another remedy before coming to the High Court.

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