E-Paper
Communicate court orders carefully: HC
The Allahabad High Court has directed the subordinate judiciary and all officers to be vigilant and prompt when communicating orders of the High Court. A Division Bench, comprising Justice Amitava Lala and Justice Shiv Shankar, while passing the aforesaid order, also exonerated the senior sub inspector against whom a charge of committing contempt of court had been levelled.
The Allahabad High Court has directed the subordinate judiciary and all officers to be vigilant and prompt when communicating orders of the High Court.
A Division Bench, comprising Justice Amitava Lala and Justice Shiv Shankar, while passing the aforesaid order, also exonerated the senior sub inspector against whom a charge of committing contempt of court had been levelled.
Briefly, the facts as alleged in the application were that, in spite of an order of the High Court (passed in a criminal writ petition in which the applicant was the petitioner) staying the arrest of the applicant, the Station House Officer (S.H.O.) of Rani ki Sarai, Azamgarh, senior sub-inspector C.B. Singh Chandel, arrested the applicant, and that the said officer was thus liable to be prosecuted under Article 215 of the Constitution for committing contempt of court.
Considering the seriousness of the allegation, the court directed the concerned police officer to be personally present in the court to explain why he should not be prosecuted.
In compliance with this order, the officer was present in the court and also filed an affidavit stating his ignorance about the Court’s orders at the time of arrest.
The Additional Government Advocate Neeraj Kanta Verma, submitted before the court that, although the stay order had been received in the court of the Judicial Magistrate on December 24, 2005, it was sent to the police station after a delay, and the documents on record reflected that it was received in the police station only on February 4, 2006, whereas the applicant had been arrested on February 2, 2006.
SHO CB Singh Chandel was thus not aware of the stay order at the time he arrested the applicant, and in any case, he tendered his apology. The court ordered an inquiry and when the case came up on the next date, the inquiry report sent by the Chief Judicial Magistrate confirmed that there was, in fact, a delay in communicating the order of the Court, and the concerned staff of the judicial magistrate was held responsible for not communicating the order in time.
After hearing the parties, the Court exonerated the SHO. Further, it was directed that the person guilty of delaying the communication be dealt with administratively, and the Registrar General of the High Court was directed to inform all District Judges (DJs) to ensure that all officers be more careful about their staff in respect of communication of the orders of the High Court.
