VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Wednesday issued a non-bailable warrant against special principal secretary (agriculture) Poonam Malakondaiah for contempt of court. The High Court had earlier summoned Poonam.
The High Court had on February 28, 2020 gave a verdict asking the government to regularise the services of petitioners, who are employees of sericulture department from 1993 and give them pension benefits. Aggrieved by the non-implementation of the court order, 17 retired employees filed a contempt petition and the court asked Poonam Malakondaiah, principal secretary (finance) SS Rawat and commissioner (sericulture) Chiranjeev Chowdary to appear before it.
On Wednesday, the two other officials appeared before the court. The government pleader informed the court that Poonam had filed a petition seeking exemption. As the petition was not found in the records, Justice B Devanand issued the NBW.
Verdict on polls today
A Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court will pronounce its verdict on the petition challenging the single judge order asking the government to issue a fresh notification for the conduct of elections to the MPTCs and ZPTCs from the stage where they were halted before the covid-19 pandemic, on Thursday.
CS asked to appear
The High Court on Wednesday asked Chief Secretary Aditya Nath Das to appear before it on September 24 in the case related to payment of bills to NREGS works. The government cited a pending vigilance enquiry for the delay in payment. The court felt the government was misleading it.