C. SUSEELA Vs. TAMILNADU ELECTRICITY BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner in this writ petition, seeks to set aside an order dated 21.03.2009 passed by the Superintending Engineer, Tamilnadu Electricity Board, Mettur Electricity Distribution Circle, Salem District. By the impugned charge memo, the petitioner was accused of giving false complaint against an Assistant Administrative Officer and an Administrative Supervisor and seeking for arbitration through outsiders and also for giving a false complaint. Though the writ petition was filed as early as16.09.2009, it was yet to be admitted. When the matter came up on 17.09.2009, this Court granted an interim stay till 30.09.2009. Subsequently, the interim order was extended on 01.10.2009, 07.10.2009 and 23.10.2009.Thereafter, on 11.11.2009, it was extended until further orders.

(2.) SUBSEQUENT to the charge memo, a notice of enquiry was issued to her on 04.06.2009 by the Enquiry Officer. Even during the pendency of the enquiry proceedings, she was transferred by an order dated29.07.2009 to Namakkal Electricity Distribution Circle, Namakkal on administrative grounds by the Chief Engineer Distribution, Erode Region. However after filing the writ petition and having obtained an interim order, by proceedings dated 19.01.2010, the transfer order was cancelled and she was retained at the Mettur Division Office itself.

(3.) THE grievance projected by the petitioner was that she is a widow and is working as an Administrative Assistant in the office of the Executive Engineer at Mettur. She is staying in the 'Q' type quarters at Door No. 56/4. She has one son and one daughter. It is claimed by her that she belonged to Scheduled Caste. It was after the death of her husband during 1999, she was posted at the Mettur station. She was also promoted on 08.07.2002. She was in charge of the desk relating to transfer and postings, pay anomalies in RWE Cadre, promotions, etc. One Andrews Joseph was the Assistant Administrative Officer and he was the Section Head for Administrative Section -2. One Vijayaraghavan was the Administrative Supervisor of the section. She being a Scheduled Caste, she was constantly put to ridicule and harassment at the hands of these two officers as they belong to upper caste. Many times they had made caste marks and she was subjected to sexual harassment.