Frequent summoning of high officials by Court cannot be appreciated: Supreme Court says Allahabad High Court order harassed UP officials

The Supreme Court on Tuesday observed that frequent, causal and lackadaisical summoning of high officials by courts cannot be appreciated [State of UP v. Manoj Kumar Sharma].

. The Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hemant Gupta also took a dim view of the fact that the Allahabad High Court had continued to hear a contempt plea even though top court had stayed proceedings in the case.

. "The frequent, causal and lackadaisical summoning of high officials by the Court cannot be appreciated. We may add that this does not mean that in compelling situations the same cannot be done but the object cannot be to humiliate senior officials," the order passed by Supreme Court said.

. By way of background, a plea was filed in the Supreme Court against a March 5, 2020 order of the Allahabad High Court which was passed in an appeal challenging a single-judge order of 2019. The single-judge had quashed a memorandum of the Uttar Pradesh government and directed payment of 50 percent back wages to the respondent.

. The respondent subsequently filed a contempt plea since the High Court order was not followed.

On February 22, 2021, the top court had issued notice in the Special Leave Petition and stayed the operation of the High Court order.

. Soon after that, the parties moved the High Court to defer contempt proceedings.

However, on March 2 this year, the High Court, without regard to the Supreme Court's stay order, directed two State government officials to be present before it.

. In its order passed today, the Supreme Court expressed its shock at the High Court's order dated March 2 and deprecated the unnecessary summoning of officials.

"Once the order of which contempt was alleged was stayed, there would be no cause for calling the officers as there was no question of any non-compliance of the order which had been stayed. This Court has even on various occasions through judicial pronouncements deprecated the practice of unnecessarily calling officers to Court. In that context, it has been observed that the trust, faith and confidence of the common man in the judiciary cannot be frittered away by unnecessary and unwarranted show or exercise of power . Greater the power, greater should be the responsibility in exercising such power," the order said.

. The apex court proceeded to stay the contempt proceedings in the case noting that the High Court order amounted to unnecessary harassment of the officers and that there was no occasion to pass such order.

"We also make it clear that as and when, if the occasion so arises, for restarting the contempt proceedings, the matter will be placed before a Bench of another Judge," it further said.

. The application on behalf of the State of Uttar Pradesh was filed and argued by Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain.

. [Read Order]

Frequent summoning of high officials by Court cannot be appreciated: Supreme Court says Allahabad High Court order harassed UP officials

Debayan Roy

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