GEORGE TOWN: M Ramachandran, whom the High Court recently found to have been unfairly dismissed as Penang Hindu Endowments Board (PHEB) executive director, has obtained a court order to compel the board to pay him over RM100,000 in damages and costs.
He obtained the order after the board ignored an Aug 8 order by the court for it to pay RM106,555 in damages and costs over his unfair dismissal.
High Court senior assistant registrar M Yegeshweriy, in the ex-parte order, asked PHEB to explain why it had yet to pay up and to show its full accounts – including a list of debtors and a list of assets – to see if the board can settle the damages awarded.
The board has also been told to attend a hearing on Jan 24.
In an immediate response, PHEB chairman RSN Rayer said he had personally appealed to Ramachandran to not enforce the award order.
“Ramachandran is aware of my objections to his unlawful dismissal. I have personally appealed to him to not enforce it (the High Court order) on the board. We will discuss this in an emergency meeting,” he said.
On Aug 8, the High Court here found in favour of Ramachandran and declared his sacking as PHEB executive director “invalid, ineffective, and baseless”.
Ramachandran had then sought to declare his sacking as illegal through an originating summons. He was sacked on Jan 13, amid allegations of breach of ethics.
In his ruling, Justice Anand Ponnudurai had said Ramachandran was not given a chance to defend himself over the allegations.
“A letter dated Jan 13 ending or sacking the plaintiff as the executive director is invalid, ineffective, made without valid basis and without just cause or excuse and is hence revoked,” he said.
Anand ordered no reinstatement to his job but ordered PHEB to pay Ramachandran RM101,555 in damages based on the basic monthly salary of RM10,390 and RM300 in allowances from Jan 13 to Oct 31.
He further ordered PHEB to pay RM5,000 in allocator costs to Ramachandran.
The unfair dismissal case had to go through the High Court as the board is a federally constituted body under a pre-Merdeka ordinance.
Ramachandran is presently the Indian affairs officer in deputy chief minister II Jagdeep Singh Deo’s office. - FMT
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