Terming the officers as “very arrogant”, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Government on Saturday and paved the way for arrest of State Finance Secretary and the Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) against whom the Allahabad High Court (HC) issued bailable warrants for delayed and partial compliance of orders.
The matter is related to regularisation of service and payment of arrears to a “collection amin” at Allahabad.
The HC, on November 1, observed that the officials have been treating the court as “playground” and have refused to grant arrears of salary to a person who was earlier denied the rightful claim of regularisation of service.
“As the respondents (officers) have deliberately mislead the court and flouted the undertaking given by the Additional Advocate-General in not granting arrears of salary to the petitioner, this court records its distress and anguish about the reprehensible conduct of the respondents, and accordingly, believes that it is a fit case to issue bailable warrant against Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) and Sanjay Kumar, the then District Magistrate currently posted as Secretary (Finance), Government of UP, Lucknow, to appear before this court on November 15. Let bailable warrant be issued against...,” The HC ordered.
The State Government, which rushed to the top court to save the top officials from getting arrested, could not get the relief as a Bench headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana said, “You deserve all this. More
than that. What are you arguing here in this matter? The HC should have ordered arrest by now...we think more severe punishment was needed to be awarded. The HC has been gentle with you. Look at your conduct, you are depriving an employee of his arrears. You did nothing to abide by the orders. The court has been very kind to you ...you have no respect for the court. This Additional Chief Secretary appears to be very arrogant,” observed the Bench which also comprised Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli.
Additional Solicitor- General Aishwaya Bhati, appearing for the officials, said that the service of the petitioner, Bhuneshwar Prasad Tiwari, as “collection amin’’ has been regularised and the juniors, who were given regular employment ahead of him, have been removed and the only issue remained was that of payment of arrears of the salary.