HC imposes exemplary cost on the State govt. for filing frivolous appeals

Madras High Court imposes ₹50,000 cost on State for frivolous appeals, directs payment of salary to assistant professors.

Dismissing a batch of appeals preferred by the State, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court imposed a cost of ₹50,000 in each appeal. A Division Bench of Justices R. Subramanian and L. Victoria Gowri observed, “All these 10 writ appeals are frivolous appeals arising out of the atrocious game played by the State of Tamil Nadu on its citizens.”

The court said, “We hope that this order will at least serve as a deterrent, and the government will avoid filing such writ appeals at least in the future. It is open to the government to recover the cost from the officers who are responsible for filing them.”

The petitioners were appointed as assistant professors. Though the appointments were made as early as 2009, the Joint Director of Collegiate Education, Tirunelveli Region, approved them only in 2020, with effect from 2009. However, the approval was recalled the very next day, and the recall was challenged in the court in 2020.

While the petitions were pending, the Director of Collegiate Education, Chennai, cancelled the orders passed by the Joint Director of Collegiate Education and the orders of approval were reaffirmed. Recording it, the petitions were disposed of by the court with directions in 2021. However, the writ petitioners were granted a monthly salary only from July 2022.

These petitioners approached the court seeking the disbursement of salary from 2009 to July 2022. The government had told the Single Bench of the court that the funds that they are receiving were sufficient only to satisfy the salary of professors. Therefore, they were unable to pay the arrears and are awaiting a special grant. As and when it was received, the arrears would be disbursed.

The Single Bench directed the payment of salary for the period during which the writ petitioners had worked in approved posts of assistant professors. The court observed that an attempt was made to cancel the approval and put up a stage-managed show to deny salary.

At the intervention of the court, the cancellation of approvals were recalled. Even after that, the Department did not pay the salary of the writ petitioners. The court directed that in each appeal, ₹25,000 should be paid to the writ petitioner, and the remaining ₹25,000 to the Cancare Foundation, Chennai.