Karur jobs case: Madras High Court reiterates stance, adjourns to July 27

MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, while adjourning a batch of petitions challenging the grant of government employment to the family members of those who died in the Karur stampede, observed that the appointments made so far would be subject to the final decision of the court.

The batch of petitions challenging the State government's decision to provide government employment to the legal heirs of those who died in the stampede came up for hearing before a Division Bench comprising Justices CV Karthikeyan and Sakthivel.

Appearing for the State, the Government Pleader submitted that the counter affidavit was not yet ready and sought time to file it. The judges observed that the case had to be heard before the beneficiaries received their first month's salary.

The Government Pleader further informed the court that appointment orders had been issued to 31 persons and that 29 of them had already joined service. The judges, however, observed that all the appointments would be subject to the final decision of the court.

The State again requested the court to adjourn the matter. The judges directed the State to file its counter affidavit by Friday and adjourned the matter to July 27.

The original Public Interest litigation was filed by Santosh Kumar of Vedasandur in Dindigul district, seeking a direction restraining the State Government from issuing appointment orders or taking any administrative action to provide government employment to the legal heirs of the 41 persons who died in the Karur district stampede. Another petition seeking the same relief was also filed on Tuesday.

The judges observed that petitions seeking the same relief had already been filed earlier. They noted that filing another petition seeking identical relief merely for publicity was not acceptable.

Accordingly, the Bench directed that the newly filed petition be tagged with the pending cases.