Panchayat Division Director issued discover over contempt of court docket
Saurabh Malik
Chandigarh, January 13
Sita Devi, 91, remains to be ready for the authorities in Punjab to open the chapter of justice. Greater than six years have lapsed because the craft instructor’s plea for counting her whole service as qualifying for pension functions was allowed. However substantive compliance of the order is but to be made.
Performing on nonagenarian’s plea, the Punjab and Haryana Excessive Court docket has issued a show-cause discover to the Director, Rural Improvement and Panchayat, asking him why he shouldn’t be held responsible and punished for contempt of court docket.
Taking on the matter, Justice Arvind Singh Sangwan asserted six years had already lapsed, however substantive compliance of the order was not proven by the respondents. It amounted to willful disobedience of the excessive court docket order, warranting additional motion towards respondent-Director underneath Part 12 the Contempt of Courts Act.
Issuing the show-cause discover, Justice Sangwan asserted the Supreme Court docket within the case of “Maninderjit Singh Bitta versus the Union of India” had held that inordinate delay in complying with the court docket order was to be seen severely.
Justice Sangwan additionally granted final alternative on the state counsel’s request for doing the needful by January 31, “failing which respondent- Director, Rural Improvement and Panchayat, shall stay current in individual earlier than this court docket on the following date of listening to”.
Earlier than parting with the case, Justice Sangwan noticed the contempt petition was pending since 2016, whereas being attentive to the counsel’s submissions that the petitioner was initially appointed on ad-hoc foundation in 1962 in Panchayat Samiti, Zira.
Her companies had been regularised on December 23, 1978. She was later allowed to cross the effectivity bar and in the end retired on October 31, 2000, on attaining the age of superannuation.
Her declare was that the ad-hoc working interval from 1962 to 1978 was required to be counted for fixing the pension, which was not performed by way of the particular instructions by the Excessive Court docket.
Justice Sangwan asserted: “A perusal of the orders handed within the contempt petition would mirror that the time was granted repeatedly to the respondents over a interval of six years for complying with the order. Nevertheless, the identical has not been performed on one pretext or the opposite.”
Justice Sangwan additionally took observe of the state counsel’s rivalry that the petitioner’s service file from 1962 to 1978 was not obtainable with the division.
Justice Sangwan added the court docket, so as dated March 23, 2022, had noticed that the respondents had been taking a stand opposite to the one within the writ petition, whereby no such plea was taken that the petitioner had not labored from 1962 until the time her companies had been regularised.
Didn’t adjust to HC order
The nonagenarian’s plea for counting her whole service as qualifying for pension was allowed six years in the past, however substantive compliance of the order is but to be made