IAS Officer Flouting Court Orders To Be Punished With Imprisonment Primarily; Fine For Contempt Only Secondary: Madras HC

IAS Officers flouting court orders should be punished with imprisonment primarily and other punishments such as the imposition of fine in contempt proceedings should only be secondary, the Madras High Court has held."If the Authority is an IAS Officer under the relevant provisions of the Act and he/she has disobeyed the orders of this Court, they should be punished with imprisonment, and the imposition of fine under the Contempt of Courts Act will be secondary, and the imprisonment should be primary...", Justice S. Vaidyanathan has warned bureaucrats.The judge was passing orders on a farmer's plea to direct revenue divisional officer of Tenkasi to dispose his appeal under the Patta Passbook Act, for correction of patta entries (the patta having been wrongly issued in the name of certain others without any documents) in connection to a property he had purchased.The Single bench noted that of late, several cases are filed before the Court with the prayer of disposal of applications filed under Sections 10 to 13 of the Act (application for modification of entries in the Patta, the appeal therefrom, and the revision arising out of the order of the appellate authority) and if those applications are disposed of by the Authorities concerned in time, the parties need not unnecessarily approach this Court for such specific directions. "It is not known as to why an order of the Court is required for the Authorities to do their job as adumbrated under the Act, for which salary is provided to them", said the bench.The bench continued to state that if any physical verification is required, the Authorities concerned must visit the spot and verify the same so that it will give a bird's eye view on the issue in question. It noted that in a case of grant compensation to a victim of electrocution, one of the Sitting Judges of the High Court (Justice G.R.Swaminathan) had done a spot inspection in order to satisfy his conscience and "the authorities mentioned supra do not have superpower and they should conduct such inspections, if required, as otherwise, they are unfit to hold the post and they should be shown the doors".Further, Justice Vaidyanathan made it clear that the time limit stated supra must be adhered to in disposal of the applications, failing which, the Authorities under the Act will have to face departmental proceedings for their misdemeanor / deviant / misconduct, dereliction of duty, lack of devotion to work and lack of integrity, so as to deprive their entire terminal benefits. "This will be an eye opener for others not to follow the errand Officials", said the Judge, adding that the outcome of the departmental proceedings must be entered into the Service Register of the Authorities.Click here to download the Order

IAS Officer Flouting Court Orders To Be Punished With Imprisonment Primarily; Fine For Contempt Only Secondary: Madras HC

Mehal Jain

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