Pulling up a petitioner for dragging Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s name in an unrelated contempt petition, the Madras High Court (Madurai Bench) has held that contempt of judiciary proceedings could be initiated only against specific persons who disobeyed a judicial order and not the head of the State.
Dismissing a contempt of court petition filed by a Tiruchy resident R Vijayakumar, a bench comprising Justices V Ramasubramanian and V M Velumani held that the petitioner had clearly sought to abuse the judicial process.
“If an order of court is disobeyed, the contempt lies only on that particular officer. All the hierarchy of the officers/authorities cannot be added,” the bench said, adding that dragging the CM into the case was unwarranted.
The petitioner, who appeared as party in person, in August 2010 filed a complaint of attempt to murder against a couple George and Grace George, as a fallout of a civil dispute, at the K K Nagar police station in Tiruchy. Grace was a functionary of the Congress women’s wing. When the police failed to take action, he approached the court.
In April 2012 his petition was dismissed after the police submitted that a FIR was registered against the couple and investigations were on. Later, he obtained documents under the Right to Information Act, which showed that the police had closed his complaint as ‘mistake of fact’ in August 2010 itself.
Following this he sent representations to the Chief Minister’s Cell, Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, Director General of Police and others pointing out that the police had lied in a sworn affidavit.
Presently, he moved the court to initiate contempt proceedings against all these persons and cited the Chief Minister as the first respondent. The judges however, threw out the petition.