Friday, July 5, 2019

Instal CCTV cameras at bus stands, depots and offices to curb irregularities: court

MADURAI, JULY 05, 2019 00:00 IST

Directs Transport department to investigate allegations of fund misappropriation

After a former Senior Superintendent of the Transport Corporation alleged serious misappropriation of the Corporation’s funds, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday directed the department to conduct an inquiry into the allegations.

Justice S.M. Subramaniam directed the Principal Secretary to issue suitable orders to install CCTV cameras at bus stands, depots, administrative offices and other workplaces of the department for the purpose of monitoring its employees and to ascertain if there were any irregularities.

Asset details

The court directed the Principal Secretary to investigate in order to ascertain asset details of all higher officials working in the management level as well as their spouse and dependants with reference to the declarations given by them in service records, within a period of six weeks.

If any discrepancy was uncovered, disciplinary proceedings should be initiated.

Four months

The exercise should be carried out within four months, the court said.

The court was hearing the petition filed by P. Rajendran who sought a direction to the Principal Secretary to the Transport Department to take appropriate disciplinary action against M. Sugumar, Joint Managing Director (JMD) of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Development Finance Corporation, Chennai. The petitioner alleged deliberate and wilful misappropriation of funds by the JMD.

The court observed that all Transport Corporations in the State were running up financial losses despite an increase in the number of passengers, while private players were earning profits. It is a high time for the State to conduct an investigation and inquire into the large scale irregularities, in order to win the confidence of the public, the court added.

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