File criminal case against policemen who receives mamool: Madras HC

Chennai: Observing that there should not be any scope for leniency or misplaced sympathy in dealing with the corruption cases, the Madras High Court directed the State government to take severe actions, including filing criminal cases along with the disciplinary actions, against policemen who are receiving Mamool from the public.

“In all such cases where receipt of Mamool by the police is traced out, criminal cases are to be registered against the police officials, who have received the Mamool. Effective monitoring of these offenses is imminent and warranted. Thus, the respondent authorities are bound to initiate all steps to ensure that receiving Mamool by the police officials, more specifically, in jurisdictional police stations, is to be effectively controlled, ” Justice S M Subramaniam made these observations on dismissing a petition filed by K Kumardoss, a former policeman.

The petitioner sought a direction to set aside the order of punishment of reduction in the time scale of pay by three stages for three years and the period of reduction shall operate to postpone future increments for three years.

The punishment was ordered since the petitioner collected Rs.100 per week as Mamool from a bunk shopkeeper who ran his shop near the Tasmac outlet in Periyar Nagar.

While rejecting his application, Justice Subramaniam held that corruption eats the welfare of the society like a termite and stops the growth of the nation.

The judge also wanted the government to strengthen the department of vigilance and anti-corruption to a greater extent, so as to ensure periodical surprise inspections and raids to deal with the corrupt practices in public services.

“Even as the department of vigilance and anti-corruption is functioning in the State, the size of the department and the number of officials functioning are not in commensurate with the large-scale corrupt practices prevailing in many departments. Urgent and stringent measures are warranted and appropriate instructions/guidelines are to be issued to all the government offices, ” the court held.

The judge also noted that the assets and the liabilities of the department servants are to be periodically verified as the Service Rules require every public servant to furnish the details of their assets and liabilities.