‘Official apathy leads to contempt cases’

Government officials, nowadays, were showing lack of seriousness in implementing court verdicts instantly and, because of this, the number of contempt petitions being filed was increasing, said Justice N Paul Vasantha Kumar, Madras High Court Judge, while participating in the inauguration of the Combined Court Buildings at Kuzhithurai in the district on Saturday.

Thousands of contempt petitions were being filed at the High Court every year. This year, during the last three months, around 1,000 petitions had been filed, he noted during his address. “The government sector should change this attitude. The officials and the people should keep in mind that the courts are empowered to give six months imprisonment for not implementing court orders and for disrespecting the court,” he said.

Speedy delivery of justice, the judge said, was fraught with hurdles. He noted that a judge could only deliver a few hundred judgements in a year but there were thousands of cases pending before him making it appear that the pending cases were huge in number. “If government departments, particularly revenue, education and police, can redress public grievances in a time, we can considerably reduce the number of cases being filed in courts,” Justice Paul Vasantha Kumar said.

These days, people were approaching the court even for getting ration cards, death certificates, legal heir certificates, pension and transfer of pattas, the judge lamented. To change this, the government employees should do their duty or else they should be made to bear the litigation cost incurred by the petitioners, he added. Referring to criminal cases, he said even after the issuance of arrest warrants, police delayed execution of the warrant. Police should be duty-bound and the judges should act strictly to make them execute arrest warrants on time, he maintained.