Telangana High Court notices to two IAS officers for contempt of court

By LE Desk

Hyderabad, June 12, 2021: The Telangana High Court has directed Telangana State Public Service Commission Chairman B. Janardhan Reddy, who earlier worked as School Education Principal Secretary, and present School Education Principal Secretary Sandeep Kumar Sultania to appear before it on June 16 in a contempt of court case.

A division bench of Justices M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Abhinand Kumar Shavili on Friday issued notices to them in this regard, The Hindu reported. 

The contempt of court petition was filed by a person from Nimboliadda of Hyderabad, Mohd. Farooqi, seeking action against the State government officials for contempt of court as they failed to comply with the direction of a division bench in a writ appeal relating to his request for job on compassionate ground.

The petitioner’s father Mohd. Fareeduddin, a government school head master, died in 2002. He applied for government job on compassionate ground in 2010. 

However, the government rejected his application as he was 15-years-old then. In 2017, he represented to the District Educational Officer to give him exemption in compassionate appointment. DEO forwarded the petition to District Collector who turned down the request. Eventually, the petitioner approached the School Education Principal Secretary. Following rejecting of his petition, Farooqi moved the HC.

With the single judge of the HC dismissing his petition, he filed an appeal before a division bench which passed a direction in 2018 stating the matter should be resolved. Stating that the officials were not complying with the division bench’s order, he filed the contempt of court petition.

During the hearing, the government counsel sought some time to implement the court direction stating that the then School Education principal secretary B. Janardhan Reddy had retired. The file was in the Chief Minister’s Office for consideration, the counsel said.

The bench observed the point for consideration was not where the file had been sent. It was a fact that the court direction was not enforced and it amounted to contempt of court, the bench said issuing notices to the respondents.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/hc-notices-to-two-ias-officers-for-court-contempt/article34792519.ece