Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 6: A Division Bench of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court comprising Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Javid Iqbal Wani has summoned Chief Secretary, Finance Secretary, Secretary GAD and Secretary PWD R&B for their failure to comply with a court order issued over a year ago and described the justice dispensation system in the Union Territory as a “cruel joke”.
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The order, passed by Division Bench, arose from a petition challenging the Government’s decision to place Chief Engineers at par with Superintending Engineers in terms of pay scale. The court had earlier directed the authorities to rectify the anomaly within three months.
“Despite the clear order, the Government not only failed to comply but also delayed filing a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court against the High Court’s judgment. The SLP was filed only after 10 months and even then, seven defects pointed out by the Supreme Court registry remain uncorrected”, DB said, adding “what infuriated the court was that the Chief Secretary failed to appear before the court as directed, citing a meeting. This prompted the court to question the credibility of both the Law Secretary, who claimed the Chief Secretary was busy in a meeting, and the Advocate General, who earlier informed the court that the Chief Secretary was keen to join the proceedings but faced connectivity issues”.
DB further observed, “both these versions are starkly disparate and in gross contradiction to each other and highlight the lack of seriousness with which the Government approached the matter”, adding “excessive latitude shown to the executive in the past had emboldened it to consistently ignore court orders”. This, the DB said, had led to a backlog of over six thousand contempt petitions with some cases pending for over a decade.
Expressing its anguish over the situation, the Division Bench remarked, “a contempt case must be concluded ideally in three to five hearings in which the order is complied with, or there is no need to comply with it as the superior court or the larger bench has stayed or set aside the principal order itself, or the contemnor is punished in accordance with law”.
The DB added, “this reflects a shocking scenario where the executive is ignoring the orders passed by this court consistently with utter disdain, cocky that this court shall take no measures imperiling their liberty for their disobedience”.
Warning that it will no longer tolerate such blatant disregard for its orders and will take “precipitate measures” to ensure compliance, the DB said, “we are recording these observations so that the UT and the bureaucracy is put on guard that what has been happening till now with the orders of this court shall no longer be tolerated. Once an order is passed, it shall be complied with in letter and spirit, stayed or set aside by a superior Court or a larger bench or, the contemnor be prepared to face the consequences for contempt of court”.
DB fixed next hearing for August 8, 2024, and directed the personal appearance of all four contemnors, including the Chief Secretary. It warned that non-compliance would lead to coercive measures to secure their presence.
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