Court No. - 59
Case :- CONTEMPT APPLICATION (CIVIL) No. - 3327 of 2017 Applicant :- Smt. Sachi Jain Opposite Party :- Abha Singh District Programme Officer & Another Counsel for Applicant :- Pankaj Srivastava,Neeraj Srivastava Counsel for Opposite Party :- S.C.
Hon'ble Yashwant Varma,J.
Heard the learned counsel for the applicant and Shri Neeraj Upadhyaya, the learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel who filed an affidavit on behalf of the opposite party no. 1.
The applicant, who is a Mukhya Sewika (Supervisor) had approached the Court seeking grant of Child Care Leave. This petition was disposed of with a direction requiring the 3rd respondent therein to pass an order on the representation in accordance with law and preferably within two months.
On the earlier occasion affidavits of compliance have been filed by the opposite party nos. 1 and 2. Along with the said affidavits was brought on record an order dated 21.06.2017 negativing the claim of the applicant for grant of Child Care Leave.
On the earlier occasion the matter was deferred to enable the learned Standing Counsel to place on record the Government Orders which govern the grant of Child Care Leave. Pursuant to the liberty so granted Shri Upadhyaya has filed an affidavit of opposite party no. 1 today.
Referring to the Government Order dated 24.03.2009, Shri Upadhyaya highlights and underlines the facts that no person can proceed on Child Care Leave without prior sanction. He has further referred to a Circular issued by the Director, Bal Vikas Seva Evam Pushtakar, U.P., Lucknow dated 16.05.2011 to submit that in all cases where leave is sought for a period of more than six weeks it would have to have the sanction of the Chief Development Officer. It is pointed out that neither the opposite party no. 1 nor opposite party no. 2 are the competent authorities in terms of the period of leave sought by the applicant. The leave itself was sought for 292 days and, therefore, for more than six weeks. It is not disputed that no application for grant of Child Care Leave was ever sanctioned by the Chief Development Officer in favour of the applicant.
The learned counsel has rested his submissions upon a response provided to him under the R.T.I. to contend that the Public Information Officer has taken the view that the application would be deemed to be or at least was on Child Care Leave.
The Court finds itself unable to sustain the submission since the Public Information Officer is obviously not the competent authority to grant or sanction Child Care Leave.
It is not the case of the applicant that Child Care Leave was in fact sanctioned by the Chief Development Officer who is evidently the competent authority.
In any view of the matter all that the writ Court required was a consideration of the claim of the applicant which has been duly attended to and disposed of on 21.06.2017.
In view of all the aforesaid facts this petition is consequently dismissed.
The notices stand discharged.
Order Date :- 23.2.2018 VR