Chennai: Madras high court has expressed dismay over the delay in conducting probes into cases of misappropriation of public funds by govt servants, particularly against those in uniformed services.
A division bench of Justice S M Subramaniam and Justice M Jothiraman directed the state home secretary to explain action taken against such complaints by Jan 6, 2025.
“It is painful to note that poor people have to shell out thousands of rupees as bribes even to get nativity certificates, patta and other such documents,” the bench said on Monday. The bench wondered why, when govt servants get their salaries and allowances on time, they force the poor to suffer.
The court made the observations on a plea alleging that wages due to prisoners were not paid for months.
The plea exposed several corrupt practices in the prison department. According to the petitioner, as per a 2022 report of the principal accountant general, unwarranted expenditure to the tune of 5.57 crore was incurred by the prison department towards purchase of raw materials for products made by prisoners and for paying wages to them.
Opposing the plea, the state informed the court that the DVAC registered an FIR on Dec 12 over the misappropriation of 1.63 crore by Madurai central prison officials between 2019 and 2021.
Pointing out the two-year delay in filing the FIR, the bench said, “You have written to 56 departments and received replies from 30 of them. Will it take two years to get a reply from govt departments?”
