Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Dec 1: The High Court today imposed penalty on Government for sitting over implementation of the court orders for a long time and challenging the said order after a great delay.
Instead of implementing the order of the court passed in a contempt petition and challenging the same before Division Bench after a protracted delay, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Sanjeev Kumar dismissed the appeal of Government which they were supposed to implement within three weeks.
DB imposed penalty of Rs 50,000 on Education Department through its Director who along with other officials had filed an appeal against the order passed in the month of March 2017, after a gap of about two years.
“To say the least, it is most unfortunate that an employee, who states that he was suspended from services in the year 2011, has not been paid a penny of even his subsistence allowances”, DB
One Mohammad Afzal Rather working in the Education department was placed under suspension in 2011 and approached the court through the medium of a writ petition seeking to give subsistence allowances to him and the court directed to consider his claim.
Despite the said direction, authorities did not implement the same compelling the petitioner to file contempt petition against the erring officers for flouting the court orders.
In the contempt petition, authorities were again directed to comply with the orders and instead complying the contempt order they preferred to file an appeal after a gap of almost two years.
“We note that the period of three weeks from the date of passing of the order expires on March 30, 2017”, DB recorded on filing of appeal after a great delay.
Court on filing of appeal after latches said there is not even a remote suggestion of a reason, rendering an explanation for the circumstances in which the delay in filing the appeal was occasioned.
The appellants have urged that they shall suffer incorrigible loss which plea taken by the department court said, is also completely devoid of any basis.
“We have no doubt that the application for condoning the delay as well as the accompanying appeal is abuse of the process of law. The appellants are exposing the private respondent to unwarranted and completely unnecessary litigation while wasting the valuable judicial time”, the DB recorded.
“For all these reasons the application for delay is dismissed with costs of Rs 50000. The costs shall be paid to the respondent within a period of two weeks from today”, DB concluded.
Court further added that the very filing of the appeal may tantamount to contempt of the Court. However, as a last chance, court granted the authorities to ensure that they comply with the order of March 9, 2017 passed in contempt petition.
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