Punjab and Haryana High Court imposes Rs 20K costs on Chandigarh Administration

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 2

A year after the action of retiring assistant professors serving in the Government College of Art and Government College of Architecture in Chandigarh at the age of 60 was set aside, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today imposed Rs20,000 costs on the UT Administration and other applicants. They were seeking extension of time for implementing the High Court judgment.

Taking up the application filed in the earlier decided case of Dr Jogender Pal Singh and other petitioners against the Union of India and other respondents, the Bench of Justice Augustine George Masih and Justice Ashok Kumar Verma observed that the prayer was for extension “in the light of the fact that the SLP, preferred by the applicant-respondent, had been withdrawn on December 15 last year, and now implementation of the judgment is taking time”.

The Bench observed that senior counsel for the non-applicants/petitioners brought to the court’s notice, during the course of hearing, an order dated February 28 passed by the Secretary, Technical Education, Chandigarh Administration. A rider had been put that petitioner Dr Rajesh Kumar Sharma would continue in service beyond the age of retirement dated February 28 till the time “no final decision is taken by the Central Government on this issue”.

The Bench added that this, in its considered view, was clearly against the mandate of the court order and contrary to the very spirit of the present application for extension of time. “This we say as on the one hand, an effort has been made for seeking extension of time for implementing the judgment, while on the other, qua non-applicant/petitioner Dr Rajesh Kumar Sharma, the implementation is partial and that too with a rider which has no connection to do with the prayer made in this application for extension of time”.

The Bench added that this apparently amounted to non-compliance of the court orders. Since the contempt petition was already pending before the High Court and listed for consideration on March 3, it would not pass further orders in this regard, the Bench added.

“It is apparent that the competent authority would have taken a decision to implement the judgment passed by this court prior to the actual withdrawal of the SLP, which was pending before the Supreme Court. We, therefore, do not find any grounds for extending the time for implementation of the judgment, especially when more than two months have passed since the withdrawal of the SLP and there has not been effective steps taken to give effect thereto. The matter is being tossed from one department to the other without much headway,” the Bench concluded.

Senior advocate Rajiv Atma Ram with counsel Arjun Pratap Atma Ram appeared for the non-applicants-petitioners, while Arun Gosain appeared for non-applicants/respondents-Union of India.

What the bench observed

• The Bench of Justice Augustine George Masih and Justice Ashok Kumar Verma observed that the prayer was for extension “in the light of the fact that the SLP, preferred by the applicant-respondent, had been withdrawn on December 15 last year, and now implementation of the judgment is taking time”.
• The Bench observed that senior counsel for the non-applicants/petitioners brought to the court’s notice an order dated February 28 passed by the Secretary, Technical Education, UT. A rider had been put that petitioner Dr Rajesh Kumar Sharma would continue in service beyond the age of retirement dated February 28 till the time “no final decision is taken by the Central Government on this issue”.
• The Bench added that this was clearly against the mandate of the court order and contrary to the very spirit of the present application for extension of time.

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