Courtrooms duels may not be exactly exciting unless you are talking about high-voltage clashes between super heavyweights.
You may be excused if the arguments and counter-arguments tend to put you to sleep, but not if you happen to be the person sitting in judgment, as Ramanathapuram Principal Sessions and District Judge K Govindarajulu, seems to have found out.
Unfortunately for Govindarajulu, he was not only literally caught sleeping on the job, his court sittings were extremely irregular. Add to that charges of corruption and favouritism and the situation gets awkward.
When they couldn’t take it any longer, members of the Ramanathapuram Bar association staged protests against the learned judge last month, besides boycotting court proceedings for around 15 days.
The protests impelled the Madras High Court to send a team of officers from its prevention of corruption and vigilance committee to conduct a spot inquiry and file a report.
The report apparently found merit in the allegations, so Govindarajulu was put under suspension. In fact, a team of officials from the Madras High Court came down to Ramanathapuram to hand over the suspension order on Friday.
As the judge was on leave, they left it with Additional Sessions Judge Siva Subramanian. A copy of the order was also pasted on Govindarajulu’s door.
Meanwhile, High Court Registrar Udhayan met the Bar council members, who levelled charges against the judge, to get to the bottom of the whole issue. That is a job in progress.
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