Madras HC quashes transfer order of Education Dept officials

Chennai, Sep 10 (PTI) Coming to the rescue of twoEducation Department officials in Tiruvarur district, theMadras High Court has set aside the transfer orders issued tothem by the District Elementary Education Office (DEEO)following a "bogus" letter sent to it purportedly by the DVAC. It also directed the Directorate of Vigilance andAnti-Corruption (DVAC) to conduct an inquiry to find out whohad sent the "forged" letter. Justice B Rajendran recently gave the direction on apetition filed by R Ganesan, Superintendent of DEEO, Tiruvarurdistrict and another official, U Rajan, seeking quashing oftheir transfer orders, issued by the Joint Director of theSchool Education Department on May 27. Passing the orders, the judge said, "The impugnedordersof transfer have been passed only on the basis of an allegedletter dated May 23, 2016 received by the department, withouteven conducting any basic inquiry to ascertain the genuinenessof such a letter which turned out to be a bogus one." "The orders of transfer are set aside. I am of theviewthat the impugned orders of transfer are not legallysustainable and the petitioners are entitled to get the periodduring which they were on leave, regularised by treating it asduty period," he observed. The matter relates to the transfer orders issued bytheSchool Education Department to the petitioners, on the basisof a letter purportedly sent by the DVAC regarding allegationsof bribery. The petitioners’ counsel, T Aananthi, submitted thattheletter received by the department on May 23 was not served onthe petitioners and when they sought a copy of the same, theywere only permitted to peruse it. The letter had alleged that the petitioners haddemandedmoney for including the names of certain individuals in theseniority list for promotion. However, Additional Governmentpleader Gunasekharan submitted that the letter received fromthe DVAC was "a bogus one". Stating that such an action on part of the officialshasto be deprecated, the judge said, "Before effecting transfers,the respondents ought to have conducted some inquiry toascertain the genuineness of such a letter or at least, theyshould have served a copy of the same on the petitioners." The judge then directed the DVAC to investigate andfindout who was instrumental behind sending the bogus letter andsubmit a report. PTI CORR ROH BN RCNTR