HC penalizes top officers over bureacratic apathy

The Orissa High Court (HC) has penalized top officers of Higher Education department on Saturday, for intentional violation of its orders.

The division Bench, comprising Justices B P Das and R N Biswal, held Commissioner-cum-Secretary Madhusudan Padhi and Director Suman Mohapatra guilty of civil contempt and imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on them. The fine is to be deposited within a week failing which they shall be subjected to simple imprisonment for one month.

Hearing the the contempt application

filed by one Debendranath Barik of Kuanpal in Cuttack district, the HC delivered the landmark judgment. Barik, a laboratory attendant in the Chemistry department of JM College in Kuanpal, had moved the Education Tribunal for grant-in-aid against his post.

There was allegedly no action by the Higher Education department despite direction from the tribunal, which made Barik to move the HC in July 2008.
Source