Orissa High Court
Balai Krushna Tej vs Inspector Of Schools And Anr. on 31 July, 1990
Equivalent citations: 1991CRILJ206
Author: B.L. Hansaria
Bench: B.L. Hansaria
JUDGMENT B.L. Hansaria, C.J.
1. This Court is being required to spend quite a bit of its time in deciding whether contempt has been committed by public officials or not. Devotion of this time is towards non-productive work, but the same is necessary inasmuch as if the fruits obtained after devoting much time, money and energy are not allowed to be reaped by the successful parties, their approach to this Court to take action under the Contempt of Courts Act against the erring officials is well justified. Most of the cases coming to this Court on the aforesaid count relate to non-implementation of the order within the time fixed by the court. As there have been a large number of allegations on this count and as the Court is being required to spend its valuable time to adjudicate such types of grievances and as it would be in the larger interest of justice if this work is avoided, time has come to say something on the implementation of the order by public officials within the time-frame fixed by the court and to take a serious note of the lapses in this regard.
2. As is known, time is fixed in almost all cases to implement the order with the consent of the counsel appearing for the parties. In such a situation, if the parties concerned find it difficult for one good reason or the other to implement the order within the time visualised in the court's order, we think it is obligatory on the part of such a party to approach the court for extension of time instead of taking the attitude of violating the order and then trying to implement the order after a contempt petition is filed. Such an attitude on the part of the public officials does not speak well and such erring officials do not show due regard to the court's order for which appropriate punishment has to be awarded on them to avoid the avoidable litigation and unnecessary consumption of the time of the court in adjudication of such disputes when the court's docket is too heavy and the court's time is required to adjudicate disputes which are pending before it for a long time. Besides, non-implementation of court's direction/ order within the time stipulated by erring officials leaves an imprint in the minds of the litigants that judicial orders are ineffective which undermines the entire judiciary in the estimation of the public. In case it continues unabated and unless a cry of halt is given with painful necessity of punishing the delinquent, the entire judicial system will fall in disrepute.
3. In the present case, the petitioner had challenged his order of suspension dated 30-8-1980 which was set aside by this Court on 16-3-1989 stating, inter alia, as below:--
"......In the circumstances, we would direct that the petitioner be reinstated in his post immediately as directed by the Director of Public Instruction (Schools) in his order dated 6-4-1983 and the disciplinary proceeding, if any, still pending may be finalised within a period of three months from the date of receipt of our order and if the same is not concluded within that period, then the proceedings may be dropped thereafter. All arrear salary and subsistence allowance, if any, which the petitioner is entitled to must be paid to him also within three months from the date of receipt of our order..............."
The writ petitioner was put back into service by 25-4-1989 though here too he was not given full charge till 30-9-89, but as he was not paid his entire arrear salary and subsistence allowance, this petition was filed on 29-1-1990. In the petition as originally filed, three persons were impleaded as parties, namely, (1) the Inspector of Schools, Puri, (2) the Director of Secondary Education, Orissa, and (3) the State of Orissa represented through its Secretary to Government in Education Department. The name of opposite party No. 3 was subsequently deleted as per the order of this Court passed on 20-3-1990. The two other opposite parties have, however, faced this proceeding.
4. In so far as opposite party No. 2, the Director of Secondary Education, Orissa, is concerned, we do not find any material to hold that he had wilfully violated any order of this Court inasmuch as in so far as the payment of arrear salary and subsistence allowance is concerned, the Director has no direct role to play. Though it is correct, as stated by the petitioner, as head of the Department the Director is responsible in having seen that the order of this Court is carried out inasmuch as he was also a party in the writ petition and the petitioner had forwarded copies of his letters addressed to the Inspector of Schools vide Annexure 4 series to him by which he had requested the Inspector to clear up his arrear pay and subsistence allowance. Even so, we do not read any act of wilful violation of this Court's order in anything done or omitted to have been done by the Director. The proceeding as against him, is therefore, dropped.
5. As regards the Inspector, it appears from his affidavit that in so far as the reinstatement of the petitioner to the post of Headmaster is concerned, he had taken some steps after he had joined the post at Puri on 1-5-1989. But from the rejoinder of the petitioner it would appear that it was only on 30-9-1989, i.e., nearly six months after this Court's order was received that the Inspector went to the school and effected partial handing over of the charge on obstruction being placed by one Sudarsan Sahoo; and this too the Inspector had done on instruction having been received from the Deputy Director (N.G.S.). Even so, we do not take a serious view of the lapse in this regard. But in so far as payment of the arrear salary and subsistence allowance is concerned, it would appear from the affidavit of the Inspector that only a part of the subsistence allowance was paid on 25-5-1989 and the balance had remained unpaid by the time the contempt petition had been filed. The remaining amount was, however, paid on 15-5-1990 after the contempt petition was filed and the Inspector had known about the same after his appearance in the Court on 23-4-1990. In this context it may be stated that the statement made by the contemner in paragraph 13 of his show-cause filed on 14-5-1990 that "balance subsistence allowance till 24-5-1989 has also been deposited in the account of the petitioner in the meanwhile" is not fully correct inasmuch as the deposit was not before the swaring in of the affidavit but was on 15-5-1990, as averred by the petitioner in the rejoinder. Be that as it may, it is apparent that the Inspector took about one year to pay the balance subsistence allowance inasmuch as the first payment was on 25-5-1989 and the second on 15-5-1990. Nothing else than wilful disregard to the time limit set by this Court could have been the cause for this delay of about one year in carrying out the Court's order.
6. The above itself would not have compelled us to take a very serious view of the lapses of the Inspector. But then, his total inaction, in so far as the payment of the arrear salary is concerned, has made him further vulnerable. As to the arrear salary from 1980 to 1989, it is apparent from the affidavit of the Inspector that the same has not been paid, the reason for the same being non-submission of the required bill by the petitioner. As to this, the case of the petitioner is that no such bill is required to be submitted by him. No financial rule or instruction has been brought to our notice which requires an Inspector to insist on submission of bill in this regard. May it be also said that this Court was not approached by the Inspector seeking extension of time on this ground. From the fact that the Inspector had paid the subsistence allowance for which the bill was raised by the Inspector, as would appear from the rejoinder of the petitioner, we are satisfied that no action was required to be taken by the petitioner regarding receipt of the arrear salary by him pursuant to this Court's order passed on 16-3-1989.
7. This being the position, there is no escape from the conclusion that the Inspector is guilty of contempt of court inasmuch as the non-payment of the arrear salary relating to a period of long nine years despite 11/2 years of the passing of the order by this Court can only be due to the attitude of wilful disregard to this Court's order passed on 16-3-1989 by which the Inspector was required to pay all the arrear salary within three months from the date of receipt of the order of this Court which was 28-3-1989 directly from the petitioner followed by communication dated 3-4-1989 from the office of the Advocate General and the third time on or about 9-5-1989 from this Court in the form of a writ issued by it.
8. The question is what sentence should be awarded for the commission of the offence of contempt of court by the Inspector of Schools, who is a responsible public officer and as such is obliged not to do anything which goes against public interest. Commission of contempt, which is related with erosion of the faith of the people in the administration of justice, causes harm to the public interest, to uphold which this Court is under an obligation to take serious and strict measures. It would be apposite in this connection to quote the following observations made by this Court in a recent case (Original Criminal Misc. Case No. 16/90 disposed of on 28-3-1990):--
"It has been a sad experience of this Court that orders passed by it are not strictly obeyed and not complied with at all at times. A spate of contempt petitions would bear this statement. If an order obtained even from this court is not complied with, there is no doubt that people at large would lose faith in the entire system of administration of justice and the same would cause a great dent to the rule of law which this Court has to uphold at any cost. People approach the courts when they are in distress, and, if after spending time, money and energy, the orders obtained are flouted or not complied with, a serious view of the same has to be taken. According to us, it is high time that the tendency, be of officials or non-officials, in not carrying out orders of the courts is put to a stop before it is too late to be cured. The tendency to violate courts' orders is almost like, a cancer in the system of administration of justice and this had to be stopped before it spreads and eats away the whole system."
9. In the aforesaid case, while sentencing the contemner only to a fine of Rs. 100/-, this Court had hoped that awarding of fine in that case which was likely to adversely affect the service career of the incumbent would have the desired effect to desist others from committing contempt. It was, however, observed that if it would be found that the sentence awarded did not serve the purpose of preventing commission of contempt, the Court would have to award severe sentence in future in larger public interest.
10. Keeping in view the entire facts and circumstances of the case and the broader aspect relating to the commission of contempt galore, we are of the view that time has come to award such a sentence which will be really preventive and deterrent. Keeping, however, in view that this is the first occasion when this Court has taken a serious view about such a lapse, we do not propose to award too severe a punishment and we are of the opinion that a punishment of imprisonment for one day would serve the ends of justice and we, therefore, award the same. This apart, we would direct the present Inspector to pay the arrear salary of the petitioner within a period of six weeks from to day without the petitioner being required to do anything else in this regard.