Kerala - Kochi   

Government staff told to comply with court orders

Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Monday directed the Chief Secretary to inform government officers about the necessity of complying with the orders of the court.

Expressing “distress” over the increasing number of contempt of court cases coming up before the court, Justice S. Siri Jagan said there would be “breakdown of the Constitutional machinery” if the officers failed to comply with the orders.

The court also warned the Chief Secretary that if the present trend continued, the court would be forced to order personal appearance of the government officers who were made respondents in the contempt of court petitions. “The expenses for the personal appearance cannot be debited to the exchequer,” the court observed.

The court said contempt case was considered “an impurity.” It had ceased to be so because of the increasing number of contempt of court cases coming before the court every day. “The list of this court starts with at least 5 to10 contempt cases. This shows the scant respect among government officers for the orders of this court. Apparently, the government officers treat contempt cases mere as an execution proceedings, which the contempt jurisdiction is not,” the court observed. The judge observed that it was time to apprise the government of the importance of complying with the directives of the court promptly. Normally, the proceedings prescribed by the rules were to issue notice when the contempt cases were admitted, in which case the personal appearance of the respondents was mandatory unless it was specifically dispensed with. The court said in order to avoid embarrassment to the officers, the court normally directed the government pleader to take instruction in the matter. “Apparently, this had emboldened the officers to take things much lightly,” the court pointed out.

The judge noted that in fact, the directive issued on writ petitions was to simply dispose of some appeals within a time frame. Without even applying for extension of time for complying with the orders, the government officers simply sit on the orders.

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