High court admonishes Punjab over 16-year delay in filing cancellation report

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has come down heavily on the Punjab Police for its "protracted official torpor" and "apathetic approach" in a case where a cancellation report, prepared almost 16 years back, was not presented in court until the High Court’s intervention through the present petition.

Saddling the state with Rs 1 lakh costs, the Bench also directed that the amount may be recovered from the salaries of delinquent officials.

Justice Sumeet Goel, while disposing of the petition, asserted that the authority to prosecute is not a privilege but a “solemn public trust, which must be exercised with utmost diligence and transparency”. The court warned that failure to discharge this sovereign responsibility promptly can “undermine the faith of citizenry in the efficacy and fairness of justice”.

Delay deprecated

Observing that the legislature had intentionally refrained from prescribing a mandatory time limit for filing a final report to give agencies some discretion, the court clarified that “this discretion is neither absolute nor unbridled”.

Deprecating the “slumber on part of the investigating agency”, the Bench remarked: “This court finds itself compelled, to deprecate the protracted official torpor and its discernible unwillingness to discharge its solemn responsibilities in a timely and conscientious manner. The case in hand is an unsoothing illustration of lack of due diligence, reflective of an apathetic approach.”

Need for institutional approach

Justice Goel asserted that such lethargy could be curbed only if courts “adopt an institutional approach which penalises such comportment”. The court stressed that imposition of costs was a “necessary instrument, which has to be deployed to weed out such unscrupulous conduct”.

Costs and directions

Since the cancellation report had been filed and accepted on August 22, the petition stood redressed. However, the state was saddled with costs of Rs 1 lakh, of which Rs 25,000 was to be paid to the petitioner and Rs 75,000 to the Punjab State Legal Services Authority – Disaster Relief Fund. The court directed the state to deposit the costs within 15 days, leaving it at liberty to recover the same from erring officials’ salaries.

The Bench expressed hope that departmental proceedings against delinquent officials would be concluded expeditiously and directed strict adherence to DGP Punjab’s circular dated September 15.

“The circular cannot be permitted to remain a trifling formality or a mere paper directive but must be effectuated in a manner that ensures its intended purpose is achieved in substance as well as form,” the order added.

Compliance report

Directing the DGP Punjab to file a compliance affidavit within 90 days, the Bench cautioned that failure to do so may invite “punitive consequences (as per law) for officer(s) concerned”.