Petitioner to pay fine for disobeying Madras HC order

Chennai: The Madras high court has imposed  costs of Rs 10,000 each on a person (petitioner) for repeatedly filing petitions for the same relief and the Director of Collegiate Education for willfully disobeying the order of the court.

Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana dismissed the petition filed by A.Nabeela, which sought a direction to the Director of Collegiate Education to send the expert committee for inspection and communicate the final decision on the application submitted by the petitioner for starting the Arts and Science College at Adirampattinam in Thanjavur district for the academic year 2019-2020 without insisting for the building plan permission.

The judge said already the petitioner in this petition had filed a petition seeking to direct the DCE to send the expert committee for inspection and communicate the final decision to her and this court by order dated April 17, 2017 directed the DCE to send the expert committee for inspection and communicate the final decision taken on the application submitted by the petitioner dated September 29, 2016. Subsequently, the petitioner had also filed a contempt petition, seeking to punish the DCE for the willful disobedience of the order of this court dated April 17, 2017, the judge added.

The judge said when the present petition came up for hearing, Special government pleader (Higher Education) filed the status report dated March 23, 2019 stating that there were certain deficiencies to be complied with by the petitioner and the petitioner’s college was directed to resubmit their application after rectifying the same. However, the said order was passed only on March 23, 2019, almost after two years, since the earlier order was passed. “Be that as it may, once again, the very same petitioner has filed the present petition for an identical prayer on January 21, 2019 for the reasons best known to the petitioner. When already a direction sought for is granted and the contempt petition is also pending, the second petition filed with the same prayer by the same petitioner is unwarranted and it is only an abuse of process of court. Therefore, the present petition is liable to be dismissed with costs. Accordingly, the petitioner is directed to pay a sum of Rs 10,000 as costs to the Chief Justice Relief Fund of this court”, the judge added.

The judge said so far as the contempt petition was concerned, the petitioner has filed the contempt petition only because of the non-compliance of the direction given by this court to the DCE.

The Joint Director of Collegiate Education has submitted the report to the Director stating that the petitioner’s college was lacking with infrastructural facilities. If the said report has already been communicated to the petitioner college pointing out the deficiencies and defects, the college was directed to comply with the same and submit compliance report to the DCE. On receipt of the same, the DCE was directed to consider the same and pass appropriate orders.

“Despite the order of this court, the DCE has willfully disobeyed the same and has not even filed the counter in the contempt petition also. Only at the time of hearing of the instant petition, the status report was filed.  Therefore, for the time taken by the authorities, this court is of the opinion that costs should be imposed, the judge added and imposed a cost of Rs 10,000 while closing the contempt petition.