High Court pulls up senior woman IAS officer

Chennai, Aug 14 (UNI) The Madras High court today came down heavily on a senior Tamil Nadu IAS officer for not complying with the court order directing him to rectify the date of birth of an employee in the Fisheries department.

Justice P R Shivakumar, passing the orders on a contempt petition filed by the employee S K Subbaiah, Superintendent, Directorate of Fisheries, admonished IAS officer Leena Nair, Special Commissioner and Secretary, Fisheries Department and Advocate General P Masilamani for not complying with the order passed in July 2007.

The High court, while allowing a petition filed by Mr Subbaiah in 2005 pleading that his date of birth be changed from April six, 1947 to December five 1950, directed the department to change his date of birth so that he could retire from serivce in 2008 as Deputy Director of Fisheries.

However, the state government, instead of complying with the order, gave retirement to Mr Subbaiah in 2005 on the ground that he had attained the age of superannuation.

Aggrieved by this, he filed a contempt of court petition. When the matter came up, Ms Nair appeared before the court and filed a counter affidavit, stating that she had no intention to disobey the court.

The date of birth could not be changed as the employee should have given his representation within five years of joining service as per the rules, she said.

Irked by the explanation offered by Ms Nair, the Judge said the high court had passed the order last year after taking into consideration these service rules, which have been superceded by many orders.

Instead of implementing the order, ''you are giving lame reasons now'', the judge said and directed her to reinstate Mr Subbaiah within two days in his present position and report the same to the court.

The Advocate General should have guided the government in the matter and should not try to sheild the officials when they commit a wrong, he observed.

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