Madras High Court seeks report on contempt petititons
Court also directed the registry to obtain information about pending contempt petitions as on September 30 this year
By : p. arul
Update: 2015-10-14 06:59 GMT
Chennai: The Madras high court has directed the state government and the court registry to file a report regarding the number of contempt petitions filed before the principal seat here and Madurai Bench.
The First bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice T. S. Sivagnanam, before which a petition filed by Tamil Nadu Centre for Public Interest Litigation, Madurai, represented by its managing trustee, K.K. Ramesh, came up for hearing, has directed the chief secretary, state home secretary and the Central government to furnish details on contempt petitions pending as on October 20 last year.
The petitioner said as on February 16, 2014 there were 12,527 contempt cases in the high court before the principal seat and 8475 before the Madurai bench as on October 17, 2014. He alleged that the statistics clearly proved that state government officials were cheating. They neither comply with court orders nor respect the courts.
According to the petitioner, non-compliance of directions passed by the court resulted in filing of a large number of contempt petitions. The government did not prefer an appeal either.
The judges said before passing directions, if any required, they would like to have the authorities' response regarding the progress made pursuant to a circular of October 20, 2014. The court directed the authorities to file details of contempt petitions pending on that date, petitions filed thereafter, how many had been disposed of or complied with and in how many cases disciplinary action taken for non-compliance of the circular.
The court also directed the registry to obtain information about pending contempt petitions as on September 30 this year. The matter has been posted for November 23 for further hearing.