Madras HC directs action against prison authorities engaging uniformed personnel for domestic work

Chennai: The Madras High Court has directed the Additional Chief Secretary/Principal Secretary to Government, Home, Prohibition and Excise Department, to conduct an elaborate enquiry and initiate all appropriate action against prison authorities who have engaged uniformed personnel/public servants for their residential or personal work, in all the prisons across the State.

The probe could be conducted either with the assistance of CBCID wing of the police or by getting necessary inputs from the Intelligence Wing, the court ruled.

A division bench comprising Justices S M Subramaniam and M Jothiraman, who gave the above directive in a recent order, said on such identification, suitable orders were to be passed by the Additional Chief Secretary withdrawing all those uniformed personnel and deploy them for prison duties as per the prison rules and the Government Orders in force. The said exercise was to be done by the Additional Chief Secretary within a period of three weeks, the bench added.

The bench passed the order on a petition filed by Sujatha, which sought a direction to the authorities to consider and decide her representation.

Her representation contained several complaints including the one against the prison authorities utilising the uniformed personnel for their residential works.

The bench said it was the duty of the Court to remind that the police/prison authorities were public servants, and they have been paid a decent salary from the taxpayers' money. Other facilities were also provided by the government for effective performance of their public duties. Thus, they were expected to avail the benefits whatever admissible under the relevant rules and in the event of abuse of official position, they were liable for prosecution and for initiation of disciplinary proceedings for misconducts, the bench added.

It said deployment of uniformed personnel in the residences of the prison authorities were resulting in dereliction of duty and/or lapses in prison administration.

When 203 sanctioned posts of Warders were available in the Central Prison-II, Puzhal at Chennai alone, only 15 Warders per shift were deployed for public duties, instead of 60 Warders per shift. Large number of Warders were deployed to perform household works in the residences of the jail authorities. The colonial practice of abuse of public servants at no circumstances be tolerated by the Constitutional Courts, the bench added.

The court said the prison authorities were public servants and they were expected to serve for the benefit of the public. They were not expected to follow any colonial practice of deploying the uniformed personnel for their residential works. They were not only committing unconstitutionality, but committing an offence against the public, for which they were liable to be prosecuted under the relevant service rules and the laws in force, the bench added.

It said even after several instructions and/or orders from this court, the practice of deploying the uniformed personnel in the residences of higher police authorities and prison authorities were not completely done away with. Therefore, stringent actions were required to be taken by the government so as to ensure that the public servants were utilised only for the welfare of the public and not to perform household work of the authorities, the bench added.