Bombay HC drops contempt action against 5 state officers tender apology

After receiving an unconditional apology from the five Maharashtra government officials—among them the Principal Secretary of the Urban Development Department—the Bombay High Court dismissed the contempt charges brought against them and the one-month civil prison sentence that had been imposed.

HC had on August 31 sentenced the five officials, including Principal Secretary (Urban Development) Aseem Gupta, to one-month in prison noting they have repeatedly failed to comply with court orders. Ajay Narhe,  and several other agriculturists, whose properties were taken in 1971 for the Chaskman and Bhama-Aaskhed irrigation project in Pune district, filed a contempt petition with the High Court.

Nitin Deshpande, the attorney for the agriculturalists, claimed that the villagers had been waiting for compensation for 25 years despite the notification of land acquisition and a high court decision in March of this year. A division bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Jitendra Jain, while dropping the contempt proceedings and sentence, observed that such a conduct from high-ranking officers was not appreciated since it would send a message that court orders were not binding.

If these high-rank officers don’t comply with our orders then it will give a message that orders of court are not binding. What message will go to the common man? the court asked. We would request government to have a special cell. You can’t have the (district) collector going around doing everything. Many of them (villagers) are waiting for justice. They are coming to us, Justice Kulkarni noted. On August 29, the HC had asked Gupta to file an affidavit by August 30 detailing the steps taken for completing the land acquisition process as per its March order.

As Gupta reportedly failed to file an affidavit, the HC summoned him on August 31. As the senior bureaucrat failed to appear before the court on August 31, the HC sentenced him and four other officials for contempt. Saraf pointed out that Gupta had submitted an affidavit on August 30, but the same was not filed in the high court department. He said the March order was complied with and necessary entries made in 7/12 extracts (an informative document that contains details related to a piece of land).