The Bombay High Court on Wednesday dropped contempt proceedings against five government officials, including Principal Secretary UDD Aseem Gupta, in which they were sentenced to one month in civil prison. The court's decision came after the officials tendered their unconditional apology.
A division bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Jitendra Jain observed that such conduct from high-ranking officers was not appreciated since it would send a message that the orders of the court 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 then. What message will go to the common man?” Justice Kulkarni asked.
Noting that a large number of litigation was arising because non compliance of land acquisition notifications, the court suggested that the government consider setting up a special cell to handle such matters.
“We would request government to have a special cell. You can’t have the collector going around doing everything. Many of them (villagers) are waiting for justice. Villages and villages (sic) are coming to us,” Justice Kulkarni noted.
The Bombay High Court, on August 31, sentenced five officials to one month in prison noting that they have repeatedly failed to comply with court orders. It was hearing a contempt petition filed by Ajay Narhe and several other agriculturists, whose lands were acquired for the Chaskman and Bhama-Aaskhed irrigation project in Pune in 1971.
Their advocate Nitin Deshpande submitted that despite the notification for land acquisition and high court order in March this year, the villagers have been waiting for 25 years.
During the hearing, Advocate General Birendra Saraf submitted Gupta’s affidavit tendering “unconditional and sincere apology”. Saraf said that he was not trying to justify the action but pointed out that the official has complied with the earlier high court order.
On August 29, the Bombay High Court had asked Gupta to file an affidavit by August 30 explaining the steps taken for completing the land acquisition process as per the March order.
As Gupta failed to file an affidavit, the Bombay High Court summoned him to court on August 31. As he failed to appear on August 31, the high court sentenced them to contempt.
Saraf pointed out that the official had filed an affidavit on August 30 but the same was not filed in the high court department. He said that the March order was complied and necessary entries were made in the 7/12 extracts.
He also said that Gupta had sent a letter requesting to be excused from court hearing due to urgent work.
Senior counsel Milind Sathe appearing for Gupta said he has been supervising since March 2022 onwards and had directed officers to complete work expeditiously or action will be taken.
However, the counsel admitted that there had been a “delay”.
Saraf said that there have been a lot of land acquisition matters and they are being disposed off. But the same are not reflected because it is all “disorganised”.
Following this the court suggested that the government consider having a special cell.
Along with Gupta, Gupta, additional commissioner (rehabilitation Vijaysingh Deshmukh, district rehabilitation officer Uttam patil, Talathi Sachin Kale and sub-divisional officer Santosh Deshmukh were found guilty of contempt.
