The Uttarakhand High Court recently issued a contempt of court notice to Dr Vivek Joshi, Secretary at the Central government's Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), for defying its order related to the empanelment of Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi [Sanjiv Chaturvedi v. Dr Vivek Joshi].
In his petition, Chaturvedi alleged that Joshi has wilfully and deliberately violated the Court's order of September 3, 2024 directing the DoPT to ensure that Chaturvedi is supplied with records relating to the process of his empanelment with the Central government at the level of the Joint Secretary.
The Ramon Magsaysay awardee argued that he had intimated Joshi about the September 3 order on September 11, and sent him another reminder, to no avail.
Taking note of this, Justice Alok Kumar Verma proceeded to issue the contempt notice to Joshi and posted the matter for December 19.
"Mr. Sanjiv Chaturvedi has contended that he had intimated the respondent about the said Order dated 03.09.2024 vide letter dated 11.09.2024, followed by reminder. The respondent has willfully defied the order of the Court, passed in WPSB No.295 of 2024, despite being intimated about the same in writing by him. Notice is issued to the respondent. Steps to be taken within a week. List on 19.12.2024," the Court said in its October 23 order.
Chaturvedi claimed that he was due for empanelment in January 2020 after fulfilling all the conditions including completion of 17 years of service, promotion to level-14 and outstanding Annual Performance Assessment Reports (APARs) as well as vigilance clearance.
However, he said that for the past four years, his empanelment has not been cleared and he was not supplied with documents concerning the process. This would result in him not being able to challenge his non-empanelment, thereby preventing him from serving the Central government, which is a basic constitutional mandate of the All India Services under Article 312 of the Constitution, the petition stated.
The plea was moved through Advocate Shashank Pandey.
[Read Order]