MADURAI: Fate could not have been harsher on 10-year-old C. Infend Senaka and her six-year-old brother, C. Isaya Abhishek, from Theni district.

The children lost their father, Charles Anthony, on March 9, 2000. And their mother, C. Leena Rose, died almost a year later, on March 5, 2001.

To add to their woes, they fought for nearly five years to receive the terminal benefits and the monthly pension due to their mother, who worked as a secondary grade teacher in an aided school. Tired of appealing to the authorities, the children moved a writ petition (represented by their maternal uncle M.S. Thomas) before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court. And they were stunned by the emphatic response.

Disposing of the petition on Friday, Justice Makena Eswara Narasimha Patrudu directed the Senior Accounts Officer in the office of the Accountant General to settle all the terminal benefits of the deceased within a month. The Chief Secretary and the Finance Secretary were directed to monitor the progress of the case. The judge made it clear that the officials would face suo motu contempt of court proceedings if they failed to comply with the orders.

The money should be put in a fixed deposit account in the name of the children.

The petitioners' uncle, also their legal guardian, could withdraw the interest for their maintenance.

Mr. Justice Patrudu said that it was an undisputed fact that the petitioners were the legal heirs of the deceased teacher. But their efforts to receive terminal benefits were "... futile due to usual delays at various levels of the official machinery ... "

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