Supreme Court issues contempt notice, orders personal appearance of Bihar officials for non-compliance with court order

The Supreme Court recently issued contempt notice against the officials of the State of Bihar for non-compliance with its previous orders directing the State to grant retiral benefits to certain pensioners [Bijay Kumar Sinha and Others v. Tripurari Sharan and Others]..A Division Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and BR Gavai ordered the concerned officials to appear before the Court on February 22 to explain why they should not be punished for contempt of court."We, prima facie, find that the non-compliance of the directions issued by this Court dated 4th March 2020 and 15th February 2021, is willful and deliberate and amounts to contempt of this Court. We therefore direct the respondent contemnors to remain present before this Court on 22nd February 2022 and show cause as to why they should not be held guilty for having committed contempt of this Court and be punished in accordance with law," the Court ordered. It was hearing a contempt petition filed by the petitioners against the Bihar officials arguing that the officials have failed to ensure compliance of top Court's previous order dated February 15, 2021.The top court had on February 15, 2021 ordered that petitioners be granted benefits by counting services rendered by them in the boards, corporations and public sector undertakings prior to their absorption and also to grant them the pensionary benefits after counting such service in the boards and corporations.The petitioners in the instant case, were appointed to various corporations in Bihar much prior to 1996. Following the shortfall of the employees in the Treasury Department, several corporations including the one where the petitioners were employed, relieved their employees and asked them to join the Treasury Department.In the year 2000, the State of Bihar was bifurcated and State of Jharkhand was carved out. The employees were accordingly apportioned between the two States. The employees (including the petitioners) had approached their respective High Courts with the grievance that after bifurcation, their services with the corporations were not considered for the purpose of pensionary and retiral benefits.The Jharkhand High Court ruled in the favor of employees which was later upheld by the Supreme Court by order dated September 7, 2017.The Patna High Court also granted relief to the employees and directed the State to grant benefit to each of the employees by counting services rendered by them in the boards, corporations and public sector undertakings prior to their absorption.The same was later on upheld by the Supreme Court by order dated March 4, 2020.The present contempt petition moved by the petitioners alleged non-compliance by the State officials with the Supreme Court's order dated February 15, 2021, wherein, the top Court had granted 3 months time to the State of Bihar to ensure all the benefits directed in the previous order of the Supreme Court and the Patna High Court, be granted to the petitioners.The top court by order dated January 18, 2022, noted that the State of Bihar has failed to comply with its previous orders and it prima facie amounted to contempt of court.It, therefore, issued notice and asked them to be personally present for hearing to explain their stance, Interestingly, the Court clarified that if by the next date of hearing, the State complies with the previous directions of the Court, the same will have a bearing on the punishment that may be inflicted upon the officials, guilty of contempt.The matter will be heard again on February 22, 2022.Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora, Advocates-on-Record Kripa Shankar Prasad, Neeraj Shekhar and Somesh Chandra Jha, Advocates Ritu Rajkumari, Animesh Kumar, Neeraj Shekhar, Nishant Kumar, Utkarsha Sharma and Shweta Singh appeared for the petitioners.Senior Advocate Ranjit Kumar, Advocate-on-Record Abhinav Mukerji, Advocates Bihu Sharma, Pratishtha Vij and Akshay Shrivastava appeared for the respondents..[Read Order]