CAT issues notice to ACS (Forests) in contempt case

Chandigarh, December 6

Days after the Additional Chief Secretary (Forests) cancelled all orders, permissions, approvals and communication by IFS officer Harsh Kumar as Chief Conservator of Forests (Hills), the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) today issued a notice to the ACS (Forests) in case of contempt filed by the IFS officer.

While cancelling all orders, permissions, approvals and communication by the IFS officer in her December 1 orders, ACS (Forests) Raji P Srivastava had said that after careful consideration of the matter, all works done by Harsh as CCF (Hills) upon his transfer had been declared legally infructuous, as the officer abused his designation and stamp.

She had further pointed out that the CAT issued status quo on February 1, 2018, while IFS officer Saurabh Gupta took over as CCF (Hills) on January 30, 2018.

Against the ACS’ orders, the IFS officer filed a contempt case against the IAS officer in the tribunal. In his petition, he stated that the ACS had violated the tribunal’s ruling in miscellaneous application 701 of 2018 and contempt of the court proceedings 135 of 2019 where the tribunal had asked to maintain status quo.