HC holds 3 top Punjab officers of guilty of contempt of court

The Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) on Thursday held three top officers -- two IAS and one IFS officer of Punjab guilty of contempt of court. The trio has been given time till October 20 to “purge the contempt”. If orders are not complied with by the given date, the HC would fix a date for pronouncing the quantum of sentence. The officers are additional chief secretary-cum-financial commissioner (forest department), Vikas Garg; principal secretary, local government, Ajoy Sharma and principal chief conservator of forests, Raman Kant Mishra.

“…. (these officers) are prima facie found guilty of violating the orders of this court as well as the undertaking given by them before the court,” the bench of justice Arvind Sangwan held while fixing October 20 as the next date of hearing and directing that a copy of this order be sent to the Punjab chief secretary immediately, with a direction to file his compliance affidavit on or before the date fixed.

The order came on a contempt of court plea filed by Bari Karoran gram panchayat in Mohali on May 18, 2023, seeking contempt of court proceedings for violation of court orders. It was stated that they are facing continuous problems as whenever an application is moved for undertaking development work or getting water or electricity connection etc., all the departments concerned, the officials are rejecting the same stating that the description of 1,092 acre of land, which is excluded from forest area, is not given and that can be done only by issuing a corrigendum by the authorities concerned, which is not being done.

In 2014, the HC had ruled in favour of villagers paving way for de-notification of this land notified under the Punjab Land Preservation Act, 1900, and declaring it as non-forest land. The apex court upheld the order but a notification is not being issued due to which villagers are facing problems, it was argued.

The court observed that a period of nine years has lapsed since May 28, 2014 judgment of high court and subsequent judgment of the Supreme Court and seven years when the contempt petitions were disposed of by HC on assurance from the state but the orders have still not been complied with. “On the face of it, conduct of the respondents despite being given repeated time to comply with the directions, not only amounts to willful disobedience, but also reflects the adamant mind so much so that some of the subsequent communications are contrary to own undertaking given before the Court and also in not issuing the correct corrigendum despite the undertaking given before this Court,” the bench recorded.

It further said that repeated affidavits filed by all the respondents also reflected that they were trying to put the burden on each other instead of adhering to and comply with the directions of the court and many citizens are facing great hardship due to this.