Madras High Court directs the Chief Secretary to file affidavit explaining delay in disposing of public grievance petitions

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice K.R. Shriram and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy wants to know why such grievances are not being addressed within a month in compliance with a judicial order passed in 2014

Taking serious note of public grievance petitions not being disposed of by government officials on time, the Madras High Court has directed the Chief Secretary to file an affidavit explaining why previous directions issued by the court in this regard are not being followed in letter and spirit.

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice K.R. Shriram and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy ordered that the Chief Secretary file the affidavit within two weeks spelling out the reasons for the government officials in Tamil Nadu not complying with the orders passed by the court on August 1, 2014.

In 2014, a Bench headed by the then Chief Justice, Sanjay Kishan Kaul (since retired), had found that numerous writ petitions were being filed in the High Court alleging non-consideration of their grievances related to unauthorised construction, misuse of waterways, and such other municipal issues.

Time-bound consideration

Insisting upon time-bound consideration of such representations, the Bench had directed the State government to issue a Government Order instructing the authorities concerned to attend to such grievances within a maximum period of 30 days and keep the petitioners informed by passing speaking orders.

In compliance with the court order, the Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department had issued a G.O. on September 21, 2015, making it clear that government offices must issue acknowledgements for the public grievance petitions within three days and redress these grievances within a month.

Office Manual amended

The G.O. also made it clear that those who submit the grievance petitions must be informed of the developments. Another G.O. was issued on June 11, 2018, for amending the Tamil Nadu Government Office Manual and making it mandatory to dispose of public grievance petitions within a month.

“Despite a 2014 judicial order and two consequent G.O.s, we find that numerous petitions are coming forth before this court arising from allegations of unauthorised construction, misuse of waterways, etc. It appears the grievances are not being attended to or redressed,” the Bench, led by Chief Justice Shriram, said.

“We find that the conduct of the Collectors and the Tahsildars is in gross breach of the order passed by this court and the two government orders mentioned earlier. In these circumstances, we direct the Chief Secretary of the Government of Tamil Nadu to file an affidavit as to why the order dated August 1, 2014 and the directions given in the two government orders mentioned earlier are not being strictly complied with in letter and spirit,” the Bench wrote.

The direction was issued on a writ petition filed by K. Subramaniam of Tiruvallur district seeking a direction to the Collector and the R.K. Pet Taluk Tahsildar to dispose of representations made by him on August 19 and August 21 regarding alleged encroachment.

Published - November 15, 2024 10:31 pm IST