Residents wary as Pernambut Municipality in RTI reply says no bus stand case in HC

It may be recalled that these columns had on September 25 highlighted a similar incident where the civic body in reply to query about its employee S Nagarathinam – who against rules was given the task of maintaining the local bus stand toilet on contract basis – said it had no employee by that name on its rolls whereas the local body had continued to make remittances to his EPF account officially.

Similarly, referring to the controversial, unused new bus stand, Pernambut bus stand retrieval committee president G Suresh Kumar had filed a case against the local body in the Madras High Court on January 31, 2020, which was registered in the HC on February 4.

He then sought through the RTI mode replies to various queries on this issue as also the status of the case in the High Court. Replying to the RTI query on September 18, the local body said there was no case in the High Court regarding the bus stand and that it has no files on this case.

This reply came despite the fact that the local body had hired lawyers P Srinivas, NK Ponraj and R Purushothaman to defend the municipal commissioner who was the fourth respondent on September 2. This was also mentioned in the High Court register.

When asked about this, Suresh Kumar said, “whom do we go to when a top local body official gives wrong answers wantonly.” Echoing him, former councilor Meeranji Saleem said, “we never believed that the municipality would stoop to the level of lying even in RTI queries.”

However, the municipal commissioner was caught when he filed an affidavit in reply to the case on November 19, a day after his office said there was no case against the bus stand. Locals are now awaiting the court verdict to decide the next course of action.