It has become a habit for State of UP to not take action unless contempt is filed: Supreme Court as HC summons top brass

The Supreme Court on Friday took a dim view of the tendency of the Uttar Pradesh government to not take action on issues until a contempt plea is filed against it [State of Uttar Pradesh v. Rahul Yadav]..The Bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli was hearing a plea filed by the State against an order of the Allahabad High Court which summoned eight officers of the State government, including the Chief Secretary and officials from the Chief Minister's office.The High Court had passed the order in a habeas corpus petition regarding an 82-year-old junior engineer from Kaushambi, who had gone missing from a hospital in May last year.During the hearing, CJI Ramana remarked,"Sorry to say, but this has become a habit of this State to not take action unless contempt is filed.".Appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, Additional Advocate General Garima Parshad submitted that two Special Investigation Teams (SITs) had been formed to probe the issue, and to check whether there was illegal detention of the missing person in question.Justice Kohli observed,"It has been a year. It was on May 7 last year and now it is a year."Justice Murari queried,"Did you check if his body was somewhere?"Parshad replied that all cremation centres in Prayagraj had been checked, and that as per the person's last medical exam, his parameters were normal."That means he vanished into thin air right!" Justice Murari exclaimed..Parshad then submitted,"Allahabad High Court is asking us to produce the corpus, but in a missing person case, how can we produce the corpus? It is not possible at all...We have apologized before the High Court. Today CMO, Chief Secretary and Additional CS has been called.".The Court ultimately issued notice in the matter and stayed the proceedings before the High Court. The State was directed to pay ₹50,000 as compensation to the family of the missing person for legal costs. The matter will be next heard in July..Explaining why it could not find the missing person, the State said in its Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed through Advocate Ruchira Goel before the apex court, said:"...the tragic incident occurred in May 2021, during the peak of the second wave of the Covid-19 Pandemic, when hospitals and health care providers were overstretched, and health care and other essential services providers were working under great stress and danger to their own personal safety and health. It was under these extreme circumstances that the tragic lapse seems to have occurred at the TB Sapru Hospital, in which Mr. Ram Lal Yadav, who was last seen on his bed at 10 pm on 07.05.2021, was not found there at 530 am on 08.05.2021. In particular, it is a matter of record that C on the night in question, i.e. the intervening night of 7/8.05.2021, 3 Corona Patients had died at the hospital, due to which there was a huge uproar at the hospital."It was submitted that as soon as the authorities came to know that the person was missing, they took all possible and best efforts to trace his whereabouts. Apart from constituting two SITs, the State suspended negligent doctors and staff at the TB Sapru Hospital, from where the person went missing. In this context, it was argued,"The Hon’ble High Court however, has failed to appreciate the aforesaid and has through repeated orders directed that the “corpus” be produced in Court – an order that it has now become clear, would be impossible for the State to implement. This impossibility of implementation has arisen, not on account of any lack of action by the State in searching for Mr. Ram Lal Yadav, but simply on account of the lack of any forthcoming information from any source, other than what has already been placed on record."On these grounds, the State prayed for the apex court to set aside the High Court order summoning its officials.