Madras High Court imposes ₹5 lakh costs on Tamil Nadu govt for filing “frivolous” appeals

The Madras High Court recently imposed costs of ₹5 lakh on the Tamil Nadu government for filing frivolous appeals in an attempt to not pay arrears of salaries to a group of assistant professors it had appointed in 2009..A Bench of Justices R Subramanian and L Victoria Gowri of the Madurai bench imposed the costs after calling out the State for the “atrocious game” it was playing on the citizens.It expressed the hope that its orders imposing such exemplary costs would deter the government from filing such writ appeals in the future..The Court was hearing a batch of 10 writ appeals filed by the State last year challenging a single-judge’s order which had directed the State to pay the pending salaries of the assistant professors from 2009 onwards.As per the order, the State government had appointed some assistant professors for government colleges in Tirunelveli district in 2009. However, the Joint Director of Collegiate Education of the region approved such appointments only on March 11, 2020, saying that the appointments will be considered to have come into effect from 2009 onwards.The next day, the State authorities issued another notification saying that the appointments stood cancelled. The notification, however, did not give any reasons for the cancellation..10 of the assistant professors approached the High Court challenging the cancellation order. Even as the matter pending, the Director of Collegiate Education recalled the cancellation order and re-affirmed their appointment, following which the single-judge asked the government to pay their salaries and arrears.During the hearing of the present appeal, the State told the Bench that it did not have adequate funds to pay the arrears to the assistant professors..The Court, however, refused to accept the State’s submission and said that it was rather surprising.It thus imposed costs of ₹50,000 on the State in each of the 10 appeals. The Bench said that ₹25,000 from such amount should be paid to each of the 10 assistant professors, and the remaining amount should be paid to a local cancer care foundation..“We hope that this order will at least serve as a deterrent and the Government will avoid filing such writ appeals at least in future. It is open to the Government to recover the cost from the Officers who are responsible for filing of these writ appeals,” the High Court said..Additional Government Pleader J Ashok appeared for the State government.Advocate T Cibi Chakraborthy appeared for the assistant professors..[Read Order]