Madras HC spares Tahsildar’s jail’s stint after apology

Chennai: The first bench of the Madras High Court on Friday accepted the unconditional apology tendered by the Tiruvannamalai district Tahsildar and meted out a lenient punishment of detaining her in the court hall till the rising of the judges in the evening and did not put her behind bars, as warned earlier.

The bench of Chief Justice M N Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy on August 2 had castigated the Tiruvannamalai district administration, more particularly the then Tahsildar, for not implementing its earlier orders relating to removal of encroachments, passed four years ago. The court will not hesitate even to put the Tahsildar behind prison for contempt of court, the bench had said, while passing interim orders on a contempt application from M Murugan. The bench had directed the Tahsildar to appear before it today, to decide the quantum of sentence of imprisonment.