Disapproving of the practice of impleading the Chief Secretary as one of the respondents to cases seeking grant of patta, cancellation of patta, issuance of legal heir certificates, provision of electricity connection and so on, the Madras High Court has directed its Registry to insist upon deleting unnecessary parties to a case.
Justice M. Govindaraj agreed with Additional Advocate General J. Ravindran that including the Chief Secretary as a respondent to cases, in which he/she does not happen to be the answering respondent, causes great hardship to the official concerned as well as the law officers who had to defend the State before the court.
“Therefore, the Chief Secretary to the government need not be impleaded as a party in writ petitions unless it is warranted... Unnecessary impleadment of officers, causing embarrassment and mental pressure, shall be avoided by requesting the petitioners to delete the unnecessary parties,” the judge wrote.
