Madras High Court shocked to know a court employee embezzled ₹1.5 crore

Orders audit of motor accident case funds in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry

Shocked to know a court employee at Pattukottai in Thanjavur district had misappropriated ₹1.5 crore from money deposited in motor accident claim cases, the Madras High Court got him arrested and constituted nodal officers, in the rank of District Judges, to inspect records of all motor accident claims tribunals in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Immediately after the fraud came to light, Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee also constituted a special Bench comprising Justices P.N. Prakash and Abdul Quddhose to put in place a "robust, fool proof and uniform" system to prevent such embezzlement. As a first step, the special bench has named the nodal officers for all 32 judicial districts in the State and also for Puducherry. CBI court judge L.S. Sathiyamurthy and City Civil Court judge A.S. Hariharakumar have been named as the nodal officers for Chennai. The bench has requested the Board of Governors for Tamil Nadu State Judicial Academy to conduct training programmes for all the nodal officers on identifying the anomalies in motor accident case records and setting them right.