‘No disciplinary action against suspended staff means loss to exchequer’

Deprecating the practice of placing government employees under suspension without initiating disciplinary proceedings, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has observed that this amounted to loss to government exchequer as subsistence allowance is paid to them without extracting any work from them.

Justice R. Suresh Kumar observed that it had become a practice to place erring officials or employees under suspension for months, years and sometimes even decades together without initiating any disciplinary proceedings. Heavy amounts from the government exchequer were spent towards subsistence allowance for them.

Instead, if the authorities concerned speed up disciplinary proceedings by issuing charge memos, and conducting and completing inquiries, wastage of money from government exchequer could be avoided. However, in most of the cases, no follow-up actions were taken for long, the judge said.

The court was hearing the petition filed by P. Poomani who was placed under suspension by the District Social Welfare Officer, Tiruchi, on the ground that an inquiry was pending against the petitioner for failing to attend office. However, the petitioner cited the lack of transport during the COVID-19 lockdown as the reason for not being able to attend office.

The judge said for the past four months, the officials concerned had not taken any further action, except placing the petitioner under suspension. The court wanted to know why no disciplinary proceedings were initiated against the petitioner, and adjourned the case till September 4.