Supreme Court imposes ₹5 lakh costs on Uttar Pradesh for defying court orders

The Supreme Court recently imposed costs of ₹5 lakh costs on the State of Uttar Pradesh for disrespecting and acting in defiance of court orders [Ashok vs State of Uttar Pradesh and anr]

A Bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih nevertheless closed the contempt of court proceedings against a Prisons Department official of the State

The contempt proceedings arose over the delay in processing a premature release (remission) application of a convict.

The convict was later released after the Court took cognisance of the matter.

In view of the same, the Bench observed in its September 27 order,

"We do not feel it appropriate to waste time on such issues. We are adopting this approach as though belatedly, justice has been done to the petitioner... If kindness is to be shown, it is to be shown by the persons occupying the highest constitutional office and, therefore, to save the time of the Court, we have decided to show magnanimity and close all the proceedings, including the notice of contempt."

But the Court also made it clear in no uncertain terms that it was far from happy about the government's handling of the case.

"We deprecate the conduct of the State and its officers in defying the orders of the Court. They have shown complete disregard and disrespect to the orders of the Court. The conduct of the State Government is such that it must be saddled with costs," the Court said while proceeding to impose costs.

The costs were directed to be deposited with the Uttar Pradesh State Legal Services Authority within a month.

The Court had recently ordered the convict's release on temporary bail, after taking note of significant delays by the State authorities in processing his remission file.

The Court had even demanded an explanation as to why the processing of the convict's remission file was taking so long, despite one month deadline set by the top court on May 13 this year.

The concerned prisons official (Rajesh Kumar Singh) had initially cited a slow response by the State Secretariat and a Model Code of Conduct (MCC) as reasons for the delay.

However, an affidavit filed later revealed that this was not the reason for the delay.

The Court had taken a serious view of these contradictions on August 20 and on August 28.

During the previous hearing, it had issued a notice demanding why contempt of court proceedings should not be initiated against the prisons official in Uttar Pradesh for making false statements in his attempt to explain they delays.

When the matter was heard on September 27, the Bench termed the case and subsequent developments 'very unfortunate'.

"This stand is taken before this Court and before the inquiry conducted by the Chief Secretary. It is impossible to accept the stand. We have no manner of doubt that there was complete defiance by the officers of the State Government with the order dated 13th May 2024 and other orders. We are also convinced that the file was not processed, notwithstanding the order of this Court, as the file was not accepted by the Office of the Hon’ble Chief Minister’s secretariat during the Code of Conduct. That is very clear," the Court said.

It further stated that it had expected the Chief Secretary to come clean in the matter but the same was not the case as efforts to cover up the contemptuous conduct continued.

"All that we can say is that it is impossible to accept the explanations offered by the state government’s officers ... We could have gone deep into the matter and fixed the responsibility, but we face a huge pendency of cases," the top court eventually reasoned while deciding to close the instant proceedings.

Advocates CK Rai, Arvind Kumar Tiwari, Anuradha Roy and Vinay Kumar Gupta appeared for the convict.

Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi with Additional Advocate General (AAG) Garima Prashad and advocate Ruchira Goel appeared for Singh.

Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj with Additional Solicitor General Sharan Dev Singh Thakur and advocates Sakshi Kakkar and Anchit Singla appeared for the State of Uttar Pradesh.

[Read Order]