TS High Court irritated over piling 'contempt of court' cases involving officials

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday cautioned state employees and the government itself against situations that would prompt it to exercise its contempt jurisdiction extensively. 

The court was referring to the piling up of contempt cases and appeals in recent times, involving senior government officials.

A division bench comprising Justice Rajashekar Reddy and Justice Vinod Kumar was dealing with a set of contempt appeals filed in relation to Asifabad district SP Satyanarayana and the then SHO of Koutala, B. Srinivas, presently at the Srirampur women police station in Mancherial district.

The two police officials were convicted to six months’ imprisonment in a contempt case for wilful disobedience of court orders in a case of dispossessing owners from their land to build a police station in Chintha Manepally of Asifabad district. The officials filed an appeal to set aside the conviction orders against them.

Justice Rajashekhar Reddy commented that the courts and judges are not here to simply issue punishment orders against officers in contempt cases or to suspend the conviction orders issued against such officers who were punished by the courts after giving them several opportunities to obey the court orders.

‘We are only upholding the interest of the public as to ensure they get justice. When they do not get their rights from the executive, they will approach the court. After examining the cases, courts issue orders. It is unfortunate that the authorities are not complying with the court orders. The government or the authorities have a remedy to file appeals in case of any objections as regards the court orders. But you cannot sit idle and this will lead to contempt cases, which ultimately leads to punishing the concerned officers for not complying with the court orders,” the court observed.

Questioning Advocate General B.S. Prasad about the gradual piling up of contempt cases every year, Justice Reddy observed “Compare the number of such cases when we entered into practise and the number now. In those days, contempt cases were few. The officers were very attentive and complied with the orders of the court. But, nowadays, the opposite is happening. Think of it”.  

The bench suspended the imprisonment orders issued against the appellants and adjourned the case for further hearing.