5 days ago
Collectors shall form panels to ensure resources meant for public use reach all: HC
District administrations, as part of their essential duties, should constitute committees in each village panchayat to ensure resources dedicated to public use are accessible to all without any discrimination on the basis of caste, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has observed.
Justice R.N. Manjula observed that the government had got a bounden duty to ensure the effective implementation of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Section 21 of the Act spoke about the duty of the government to ensure the effective implementation of the Act.
Earlier, the court took a serious view of caste discrimination reported in Thalaivankottai in Tenkasi district, where Scheduled Caste people had to wait to collect their share of water from a public tap till the water needs of the other communities were fulfilled. The court had directed the Tenkasi Collector to take appropriate steps and ensure that such discrimination did not take place.
Pursuant to the court order, the Tenkasi Collector, in a report, submitted that 17 public water tap connections had been provided and water was being supplied for three hours every day.
It was also submitted that a committee comprising the panchayat president, panchayat secretary and Zonal Assistant Block Development Officer had been formed to ensure that there was no discrimination between people belonging to different communities.
The court observed that Section 3(1)(za) (A) of the Act included obstruction and prevention of a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe from using a common public area or resources as an offence.
The court directed the Directorates of Municipal Administration and Town Panchayats and the District Collectors, under the supervision of the Chief Secretary and with the coordination of the Director General of Police, to implement the objectives of Section 21 of the Act, especially in the matter of sharing water and file a report.
A healthy atmosphere in rural and urban communities should be ensured in order to achieve the objective of the Act, the court observed and posted the matter for hearing to August 21.
