Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

3. In July and August, 1955, copies of a pseudonymous communication addressed to Sri Kandhu Bhai Desai, Minister for Labour, Government of India, came by post to various employees in this office of the Director of Resettlement and Employment. It is not necessary to refer to the various allegations in this communication, It will be sufficient to say that inter alia it attributed various categories of infamous conduct to Mr. Abdul Khader, the previous Regional Director; to Mr. Pushparaj, the then Director, to Mr. Nambiar, an Assistant Director; to Kumari Arundhathi, Dy. Regional Employment Officer; and to various other individuals connected with the organisation.

5. What happened thereafter is set out in paragraph 3 of his order:

Thereafter I made preliminary investigations and examined one of the recipients of these covers Shri Chandrasekharan and some of the clerks of the R.E.E., viz., Shri Jayapalan and Shrimathi Leelavathi whose statements were recorded. All these clerks solemnly affirmed that the handwriting of the addresses on the covers shown to them was that of Kumari Gabriel who was their erstwhile co-clerk. Besides the opinion of these clerks, I also had the opinion of the R.E.O., Shri Nambiar and my Assistant Director Shri Anugraham who were also definitely of the opinion that the handwriting resembled that of Kumari Gabriel. Being thus satisfied that there was a prima facie case against Kumari Cabriel that she had sent out these typewritten petitions over a pseudonymous name and that she has been indulging in this sort of subversive activities with intent to insult, annoy, defame and bring into disrepute some of the officers and staff of this organisation and that as the offence committed by her in circulating this highly obnoxious and defamatory petition was of a very serious and grave nature warranting drastic action, I placed Kumari C. Gabriel under suspension with effect from 17th September, 1955, pending a regular enquiry against her.

7. Subsequently Mr. Pushparaj continued his investigation and after examining more witnesses he framed the following charge against the petitioner:

That Kumari C. Gabriel, Junior Clerk, Office of the Assistant Director of Training, under suspension indulged in subversive activities by defaming some of the officers and staff of this Region and also bringing the Employment Organisation in Madras Region into disrepute by circulating typewritten copies of a highly defamatory petition over a pseudonymous name containing false and vexatious allegations of a most serious, obnoxious and damaging nature against some of the officers and staff of this organisation, in postal envelopes on which she has herself written most part of the addresses and has thereby committed a grave and serious offence, revealing misconduct of a most reprehensible nature warranting severe disciplinary action.

10. On 14th October, 1955, the petitioner went to the Office of the Regional Director to inspect the documents. What happened at that time is a matter of acute controversy between Mr. Pushparaj and the petitioner. The view of Mr. Pushparaj is set out in paragraph 8 of his order:

Accordingly the delinquent clerk, Kumari C. Gabriel, came to my office on the 14th October, 1955 and had inspection of the pseudonymous petition and also the postal envelopes in question in which copies of the petitions were received by several persons. Before I allowed her to have inspection of the documents, I took the precaution of asking two of my officers, viz., the Assistant Director of Training, Shri M. D. Naik, and the Inspector of Training, Shri T.R. Doss, to be present in my room as witnesses to the inspection so that the delinquent clerk may not later on say that she was not given any fair opportunity to inspect all the relevant documents she wanted to see. The inspection went on for fully one hour from 12-30 to 1-30 P.M. I placed the entire file containing the several copies of the pseudonymous petition and the covers and asked her to go through them. She read through a petition and made some notes on a sheet of paper. After that she carefully examined the postal covers in question. Then I gave her a few sheets of paper and asked her to take down to my dictation some of the addresses on the envelopes in question, which I read out to her. After having fully inspected all the records she wanted to see, the delinquent clerk recorded an acknowledgment on my office file as follows: