Rs 50,000 fine on Municipal Administration Secretary for contempt

Justice T Raja on noting that the officer had at last appeared in court after forcing several adjournments said “It’s the duty of the court to uphold and maintain its dignity. The court should not hesitate to enforce its own order by exercising the power of contempt, whenever there is an instance like the one on hand. Otherwise, not only the person, in whose favour the order, judgment or decree is passed will be losing his confidence in the court, but also the entire proceedings will be rendered naught and meaningless, consequently, the sanctity of the court’s proceedings would be rendered to mockery and an empty formality.” 

The contempt proceedings were initiated by one Lawrence against whom a charge memo was issued on July 28, 2008. Since no action was taken till 2014, he moved the high court for the first time stating that he had lost his promotion opportunities owing to this. The court on hearing his plea had on December 2014 directed the authorities to pass appropriate orders.

But with the charges not being proved at the end of an inquiry in February 2015, the court directed the authorities to take appropriate decision. But despite this, the Municipal Administration secretary failed to pass any order. This led to a second bout of litigation with the petitioner moving a plea in 2016 seeking to quash the charge memo. Yet again, the High Court on March 11, 2016 directed the secretary to pass appropriate orders, which was once again ignored. 

Though following contempt proceedings, the officer filed an affidavit on March 10, 2017 tendering an unconditional apology for the delay in implementing the Court order issued on March 11, 2016, the judge set aside the apology after holding that: “Such an affidavit of the contemnor cannot compensate the wasting of precious time of the court and also the financial loss caused to the exchequer towards litigation expenses.”