HC sets aside lower court's order over suspension of clerk

Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has set aside the order of a court in Kanyakumari district treating the suspension period of a head clerk of the court as "earned leave", after dropping further proceedings and revoking his suspension.
A Division Bench of Justice V Ramasubramanian and Justice VM Velumani said "Once the explanation to a show cause notice is accepted and the order of suspension is revoked, the question of treating the period of suspension as earned leave does not arise."
In the case of the Petitioner C Jeyakumaran, Head clerk of the Principal District Munsiff-cum-Judicial Magistrate (PDM-cum-JM) Court at Eraniel, no disciplinary proceedings were initiated in the form of charge memo under 17(a) or 17(b) of Tamil Nadu Civil Service(Discipline and Appeal)rules.

A memo issued by the PDM-cum-JM could not be treated as charge memo. The petitioner had not pleaded guilty as contended by the PDM-cum-JM. In his explanation,the petitioner had owned responsibility for his act,and had not pleaded guilty. Therefore the contention that the petitioner had pleaded guilty cannot be accepted, the bench said.
The petitioner was issued memo as he did not produce the attendance register on September 25, 2013 and was suspended the same day.
The petitioner gave an explanation accepting his responsibility and the PDM-cum-JM dropped proceedings against him and treated his suspension from September 25 to October 9 as "earned leave".

Aggrieved by the order,the petitioner filed the present petition seeking to set aside the order of the PDM-cum-JM.