Holding V.K. Saraswat, former Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister and Padma Bhushan award winner, and G. Malakondaiah, the then Director of Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory, Hyderabad, guilty of contempt of court, the Madras High Court on Thursday sentenced them to simple imprisonment for three weeks and imposed a fine of Rs. 2,000 on each of them.
The court directed the government to take departmental action against them for the “reckless negligence and wilful disobedience” of its order which led to insurmountable sufferings for a person for more than a decade. It directed that the two surrender within a week for undergoing the punishment.
A Division Bench, comprising Justices S. Rajeswaran and P.N. Prakash, passed the order on a contempt petition by S. Joseph Raj, who sought punishment for the authorities who disobeyed a High Court order of April 30, 2009.
The petitioner was appointed clerk-cum-storekeeper in the Combat Vehicle Research and Development Establishment School at Avadi here in August 1985. In 2001, a decision was taken to close the school and the employees were issued termination notice. The court battle of Mr. Raj started from the Central Administrative Tribunal then. There were a few rounds of litigation.
The High Court confirmed the tribunal order directing the authorities to consider the petitioner for the post of Senior Technical Assistant-A (Library Science) under the CCS (Redeployment of Surplus Staff) rules within two months. Contending that this was not complied with, Mr. Raj filed the present contempt petition.
The Bench said the contemnors were aware of the judiciary’s findings that the CVRDE School was a government institution and Mr. Raj was entitled to be considered for redeployment, but they feigned ignorance and continued to say otherwise. An appointment order was issued in July 2009 pursuant to the court order, but the petitioner was not allowed to join duty. “A sleeping man can be woken, but not a man who pretends to sleep. Here, the contemnors belong to the latter category and they can never be woken up unless orders in contempt application are passed.”
The court held that the two had wilfully disobeyed the court order. The two were aware of earlier orders passed by the tribunal and the courts regarding the petitioner’s status. In spite of that, they were doing everything possible to deny employment to him.
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