VIJAYAWADA: In a relief to six IAS officers — Y Srilakshmi, B Rajasekhar, Chinna Veerabhadrudu, J Shyamala Rao, G Vijay Kumar, MM Naik — a division bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, comprising Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah and Justice T Rajasekhar on Thursday suspended the single judge’s order of 12-week-social work in any SC, ST, BC welfare hostels, for eight weeks. Further hearing in the case was posted to June 20.
Last month, dealing with a contempt petition, Justice B Devanand directed eight senior IAS officers to do service at social welfare hostels on one Sunday of every month for an entire year. They were also asked to spend a day with students and bear the expenses of lunch or dinner of the latter. In fact, they were sentenced to two weeks of imprisonment and `1,000 was imposed as fine for contempt of court orders.
However, following IAS officers tendering an unconditional apology, the court remitted the sentence and asked them to serve at hostels. Later, Srilakshmi challenged the single judge verdict, which was dismissed. Subsequently, IAS officers Gopal Krishna Dwivedi and Girija Shankar went for an appeal against the verdict and on April 22, a division bench headed by Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra has suspended the order for eight weeks.
Following the development, the other six IAS officers also filed petitions challenging the single judge verdict. Senior advocates CV Mohan Reddy and A Sudharshan Reddy arguing for petitioners, said social service as punishment cannot be given for the contempt of court, and said it is in excess of the provisions of the Contempt of Court’s Act 1971. They argued that the quantum of punishment for the contempt of court is clearly mentioned in the Act, hence the single judge verdict should be quashed.
They brought to the notice of the bench the recent orders by the division bench headed by the Chief Justice suspending punishment by eight weeks in the petition filed by IAS officers Gopal Krishna Dwivedi and Girija Shankar pertaining to the same case.