Allahabad HC issues bailable warrant against UP Principal Secretary (Home) in contempt of court case

Coming down heavily upon the deliberate and wilfull disobedience of the orders passed by the Court, the Allahabad High Court last week issued bailable warrant against the Principal Secretary (Home) of Uttar Pradesh, Sanjay Prasad. The Officer had failed to appear before the Court in a contempt case.

The bench of Justice Piyush Agrawal observed that it appeared that the opposite parties in the instant matter had no regard to the orders passed by the court. "In view of the above, a prima facie case for contempt is made out against the opposite parties", the court held while issuing the bailable warrant.

The present contempt application, before which there had been another, was filed by one Suresh Chand Rajvanshi who alleged that the order of the high court in a writ petition wherein the court had directed the state authorities to decide the claim of the petitioner for grant of an additional increment within a period of three months had been willfully disobeyed.

When the said order was not complied with, the present applicant had filed a contempt plea, which was disposed of in May last year. However, even after the orders of the writ Court and the contempt Court, the claim of the applicant was not decided, and therefore, he filed the second contempt application.

On November 9, 2022, the high court had noted in its order that a prima facie case for contempt was made out and hence, issued notice to opposite parties returnable within a month. Through the same order, the court had also granted one more opportunity to the opposite parties to comply with the order within a month and file an affidavit of compliance within the aforesaid period.

In the order, the court had, however, noted that in case by the next date fixed the directions of the Writ Court are not complied with and an affidavit to that effect is not filed, the opposite party shall remain present before this Court on the date fixed.

Pursuant to the aforesaid order, though the opposite parties, including the Principal Secretary Home, filed their respective affidavits, Court found that in the affidavit of the Principal Secretary, no specific averment had been made with regard to the compliance of the writ Court's order.

When court pointed out that despite such affidavit, the Principal Secretary Home was present before the court, the Additional Advocate General informed the court that an application had been filed for exempting the officers's personal presence, along with an affidavit.

However, the court rejected the exemption application stating that in the concerned affidavit, there was no whisper about the reason or justification for the non-appearance of the Principal Secretary Home.

Therefore, while stressing that the manner in which the Officers of the State are behaving is a very sorry state of affairs, the single judge bench directed the Director General of Police (DGP), Lucknow to serve the bailable warrants to the Principal Secretary Home within a week.

Court also directed the DGP to ensure that on the next date of hearing, the Principal Secretary is present before the court.

Case Title: Suresh Chand Rajvanshi v. Shri Sanjay Prasad, Principal Secretary Home And Another