Chennai: Underscoring the need to protect the sanctity of the reservation policy, Madras high court has directed the state govt to ensure that guidelines for the issuance of scheduled caste/scheduled tribe community certificates are scrupulously followed to avoid their misuse. The court also said disciplinary action should be initiated against the erring subordinate authorities for dereliction of duty and negligence.
Disposing of a writ petition filed by Bank of Baroda seeking directions to TN state level scrutiny committee, Adi Dravidar and tribal welfare department to expeditiously determine the community status of some of its employees facing charges of bogus certificates, a division bench of Justice S M Subramaniam and Justice K Rajasekar said the govt has to assess the workload of the state level scrutiny committee and constitute the required number of committees for disposing of pending enquiries.
“The fact that many bogus community certificates are issued by revenue authorities should also be monitored by govt and the authorities issuing them must be held responsible and accountable,” the bench said.
Pointing out that several persons who secured public employment through bogus community certificates are not cooperating with the committee for enquiry, resulting in the delay, the bench said the state level scrutiny committee or the competent authority is empowered to record such non-cooperation and proceed with the matter without any further delay. “Importantly, reasons and the non-cooperation must be specified in the order itself,” court said. It directed the registry to issue a copy of the order to the chief secretary to issue appropriate instructions to all govt departments.