Allahabad High Court issues non-bailable warrant against Mathura District Magistrate

Allahabad, May 1

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The Allahabad High Court has issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against Mathura District Magistrate Navneet Singh Chahal and directed police to produce him on the next date of hearing for “disrespecting” the order of the court on payment of pension.

Hearing a contempt plea filed by Braj Mohan Sharma and three others, Justice Saral Srivastava observed that the April 18 order passed by the Mathura district magistrate on the payment of pension issue is nothing but a “gross contemptuous act” by him as it cannot be believed that an officer cannot understand the intent and simple language in which the order of the court has been passed.

The court on September 6, 2021 had quashed an order passed on July 22, 2016 by Chahal, whereby the respondents had denied the payment of pension to applicants on grounds that services rendered by them prior to the date of regularisation shall not be counted as qualifying service so as to entitle them the benefit of old pension scheme.

The court had held that the services rendered for a very long period cannot be ignored while computing qualifying service. Directions are issued for computing and payment of pension calculating the services rendered by the petitioners with effect from 1996 as qualifying service.

When the order of the court was not complied with, the applicants filed the contempt application.

On February 11 this year, the court issued notices to the opposite party to comply with the order. A compliance affidavit was filed enclosing there with an order dated April 18 passed by the district magistrate, Mathura refusing to grant the benefit of service rendered by the applicants prior to their regularisation.

Hearing the contempt application on April 26, the court observed, “It is very surprising that despite a clear mandate issued by this court, the district magistrate, Mathura sat over in appeal of the order passed by this court. It is expected that the district magistrate should know the basic principle of law that till the order is stayed, the order shall remain in force and the authority is bound to comply with the order”.

“Despite the fact, the district magistrate, Mathura knowingly and deliberately passed the order dated April 18, 2022 which is nothing but abuse of power on the part of the DM and amounts to gross disrespect to the order of this Court,” the court said.

The court has fixed May 12 as the next date of hearing.