R. GNANASEKHAR Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner herein was originally included in the promotional panel for the post of Additional Commissioner for the year 2014-2015 and accordingly he was promoted to the said post. Thereafter, one P.Vasunathan, Joint Commissioner who was senior to the petitioner had filed a writ petition before this Court and pursuant to the orders passed therein, he was placed at Sl.No.1 in the seniority list of Assistant Commissioner for the year 2014-2015 and the petitioner was reverted from the said post. Consequently, P.Vasunathan, was promoted as an Additional Commissioner and he had also retired from service. In this background, when the petitioner was entitled to be promoted to the post of Additional Commissioner, the impugned charge memo dtd. 5/5/2017, came to be framed under Rule 17(b) of Tamil Nadu Civil Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules against the petitioner. Challenging the same, the present writ petition has been filed.

(2.) Learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance on the earlier proceedings of this Court where his reversion was challenged and the orders of the learned Single Judge, setting aside the reversion, which were confirmed till the Hon'ble Supreme Court and submitted that, as per the observations made by the High Court as well as the Hon'ble Supreme Court, the issuance of the charge memo was only for the purpose of disentitling him for promotion, the charge memo requires to be quashed. Learned Senior counsel also submits that there is a delay in initiation of the charges.

(3.) Per contra, learned Additional Government Pleader has placed reliance on the averments stated in the counter affidavit and submitted that in a parallel proceedings in Crl.O.P (MD).No.3466 of 2016, this Court had directed the Department to conduct an enquiry into the administration of the temples in Kanyakumari District for the past eight years and submit its report. In pursuance to this enquiry, the delinquency attributed against the petitioner was found and therefore, charges came to be framed against him. Learned Additional Government Pleader would attribute the same reason for the delay in framing of charges also.