A Division Bench of the Madras High Court has stayed the operation of an order passed by a single judge of the court on July 6 directing the State government to suspend a State Tax Officer for having misled the court during the hearing of a case.
Justices Pushpa Sathyanarayana and Krishnan Ramasamy granted the interim stay after the officer D. Mukundhan preferred an appeal. His counsel N.G.R. Prasad said the single judge ought not to have directed the State government to suspend.
He argued that the judge should have left it to the wisdom of the officer’s higher authorities to take a call on the issue. He said the officer had initially made a wrong submission before the single judge during the hearing of a commercial tax case.
However, a few minutes later, the officer cross checked the information with other officials and informed the court that his previous submission was wrong. It was an inadvertent mistake and does not call for suspension, the counsel contended.
