Chennai: Forty-five-year-old R. Parvathi of Pollachi finally got a job, as a class-IV (menial work) employee in her municipality office. The victory came at the end of 25 years of bitter battle that took her case right up to the Madras high court where the benevolent bench of Justices R. Sudhakar and S. Vaidyanathan told the Pollachi municipality sternly that the poor woman had suffered enough running from pillar to post for the 'menial' job even after the government employment exchange recommended her case.
The interesting part in this tragic-happy saga of poor Parvathi is that she had to fight not only the municipality for denying her the deserved job but also another Parvathi who had impersonated her to steal the job. The imposter, being the wife of an influential local politician, could have gotten away with her 'theft' of the victim's identity but for the dour battle Parvathi waged through these past 25 years. Since her name too was Parvathi, albeit with a different initial, ‘P’ because father's name was Palanisamy, the clever manipulator altered her initial as 'R' claiming her father's name was Rangan.
The ‘real’ Parvathi wailed, protested and fought but with no avail as the municipality officials chose to help the other Parvathi since she happened to be their councilor's wife. Adding to her woes, the employment exchange stuck her name off its rolls as the municipal commissioner sent a communication to it saying she was given the job following the recommendation from the exchange. She moved the high court in 1996 and got a favourable order in 2009, but the imposter filed an appeal in 2012.
Delivering their humane judgment on this appeal, on March 15, Justices Sudhakar and Vaidyanathan stressed that impersonation “is a crime” that cannot be given a go-by. “The case requires proper investigation by the law enforcement agency to book the culprits who were responsible and involved in the said acts of creating records, altering data, etc., thereby abetting impersonation”, they said, while dismissing 'imposter' Parvathi's appeal and also slamming cost of Rs 10,000 on her. The court has asked the authorities to give the 'real R' Parvathi a job immediately and also recover the wages paid by the municipality to the 'imposter'.
