Employees of various courts and officials of the Motor Vehicle Department in Kasaragod have got into a legal fight after an incident where the vehicle in which the employees were travelling was stopped by MVD officials.
The MVD and a section of staff in courts filed cases against each other recently under Sections of the IPC and SC and ST Act.
For the past few months, the court staff used to travel from places such as Payyanur in a contract carriage used for tourist travel due to the lack of public transport.
According to an official in the Regional Transport Office, KSRTC officials had filed complaint with the District Collector and the transport department about the issue. The vehicle was stopped by MVD officials stating that its operation was illegal.
However, this did not go down well with the court staff, who allegedly got into a confrontation with the MVD officials.
Cases were registered against 18 court employees on a complaint filed by MVD officials alleging obstruction of duty during the inspection. Following this, 60 court employees filed 20 complaints at the Kasaragod police station against four RTO officials alleging negligent driving likely to cause danger to other road users and disrespectful treatment of people, including women.
The police registered non-bailable cases against the employees of the Regional Transport Office under Section 3 of the Scheduled Caste and Tribes Act after the court staff accused the RTO officials of calling out members by mentioning their caste. The case has now been handed over to Assistant Superintendent of Police K.Vivek Kumar of the Special Mobile Squad.
The plaintiffs are employees of various courts, including the District Court, the CJM Court, the Munsiff Court, the Additional District Court, and the First Class District Magistrate’s Court.
Earlier, the district administration had arranged KSRTC buses for the employees of the courts and the collectorate to reach their places of work.
However, stating that the bus rates were high and that the KSRTC’s facilities were inadequate, the employees of the court engaged the contract carriage. The KSRTC officials, however, lodged a complaint against this.
The MVD alleged that the court staff in the contract carriage had picked up a passenger on the way. However, the court staff said that only those who had booked seats in the bus earlier had boarded the vehicle on the way.
