Court No. - 19
Case :- CONTEMPT APPLICATION (CIVIL) No. - 4877 of 2018 Applicant :- Smt. Geeta Devi Opposite Party :- S.K. Singh, Deputy Director Counsel for Applicant :- Lal Mani Singh,Raghuvir Sharan Singh Hon'ble Ajit Kumar,J.
By means of this contempt application, the applicant has raised grievance that inspite of direction of this Court dated 31st July, 2017 passed in Writ A No. 35526 of 2017 to dispose of the departmental appeal of the petitioner expeditiously, the same has remained pending over a year before the opposite party.
The memo of appeal dated 20th September, 2017 has been brought on record as Annexure 14 to the affidavit filed in support of the contempt application. The Court does not appreciate the conduct of opposite party in keeping the appeal pending for over a year when this Court already directed for disposal of the departmental appeal expeditiously. The order of this Court is dated 31st July, 2017 and the appeal was filed by the applicant on 20th September, 2017. When this Court has made clear direction for disposal of the appeal expeditiously, it very much means that there was mandate to decide the appeal within a reasonable period of time.
In the opinion of the court six months period is more than reasonable time to decide the departmental appeal and, therefore, in the opinion of the Court, prima facie, case for contempt is made out against the opposite party. However, instead of issuing notice at this stage one more opportunity is granted to the opposite party to decide the departmental appeal of the applicant positively within period of two months from the date of production of certified copy of this order, failing which it will be open for the applicant to file fresh contempt application.
The application is accordingly disposed of with the aforesaid direction and observation.
Order Date :- 14.9.2018/Sanjeev