CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government has more than 200 contempt petitions pending against it and efforts are being made to reduce it to nil by seeking action-taken reports from various departments in the state.
The departments of Transport, Health and Family Welfare, Home, Municipal Administration, Labour and Employment, Finance and Rural development are having pending contempt cases running into double digit, official sources told Express.
Sources said the Transport department has 37 pending contempt petitions believed to be the highest among the departments. It is learnt that in June alone, a total of 98 counter-affidavits have been filed by the state government.
This comes despite the state government having set up a court case monitoring system (CCMS), an IT application platform, which monitors cases pending against the departments or officials concerned. The CCMS, which was created in the wake of over 19,000 contempt petitions pending against Tamil Nadu officials in the Madras High Court and the Madurai Bench between 2010 and February 16, 2014, revealed in 2017 that counters were yet to be filed in 13,000 cases.
The state government has since directed all departments to file counters. While the counters have been filed in most of the cases, the number of pending contempt cases is still above 200. Sources said a special review meeting was held last month with nodal officers of the CCMS for the departments of the Secretariat on pending court cases.It is learnt that most of the departments are having more than 10-year-old cases without filing counter-affidavits.
In some cases, the pendency is due to want of draft counter affidavit from the heads of the departments. Sources indicated that nodal officers of the CCMS are unaware of the nature of cases and they have not verified the list of pending cases with the actual existing cases.
Interestingly, officials claim that the number of contempt petitions could have come down as in many cases the orders have been complied with, but the CCMS website has not been updated.“We have sought a consolidated list of contempt cases in which the court direction is complied with and this will be furnished to the special government pleader,” sources told Express.
Factfile:
List of contempt petitions pending against TN: More than 200
Department having highest contempt cases: Transport (37)
Following are the departments having double digit contempt cases:
1. Transport
2. Health and family welfare
3. Home
4. Municipal Administration
5. Labour and employment
6. Finance
7. Rural Development