Supreme Court stays Allahabad High Court's non-bailable warrant against NOIDA CEO Ritu Maheshwari

The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed an order of the Allahabad High Court which issued a non-bailable warrant against New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Ritu Maheshwari. .Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi mentioned the plea before a bench comprising Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices JK Maheshwari and Hima Kohli after the bench declined a mentioning request yesterday. The senior counsel said that this was an extreme case where a passover was sought and the High Court ruled that it was gross contempt and issued a non-bailable warrant."Stay the High Court order. List tomorrow," said the CJI..The order under challenge was passed by Justice Saral Srivastava of the Allahabad High Court on May 5. The CEO, NOIDA was asked to be present in court on the day, however, she was not there when the matter was taken up..Her counsel informed the single judge that her flight from Delhi was at 10:30 am. The court took strong objection to the petitioner’s conduct stating that she was supposed to be present at 10 am and the court could not be expected to wait for her to take up the matter.“This conduct of CEO is reprehensible and amounts to contempt of Courts, inasmuch as she has been summoned by the Court in a contempt proceeding for non-compliance of an order passed by Writ Court,” the High Court had said. .The order recorded that when her appearance was sought, she was expected to be present in court when it assembled. However, she chose to take a flight at 10:30 am deliberately with an expectation that the Court would take up the matter as per her convenience.“This Court finds that such conduct of CEO, NOIDA amounts to deliberate and wilful disrespect to the Court, as the Officer of the rank of Chief Executive Officer of a Corporation expected the Court to take up the matter at her mercy, therefore, this Court finds it to be a fit case where non-bailable warrant be issued against the CEO, NOIDA.”.With this, a non-bailable warrant was issued against Maheshwari and she was directed to be brought to court by police custody May 13.This order was stayed by the top court today and the plea will be considered further on May 11..Maheshwari was represented by Rohatgi, who was briefed by a team from PSL Advocates & Solicitors comprising Sameer Jain, AoR Soayib Qureshi, Anu Sura, Jayashree Parihar, Love Kumar Gupta, Deepesh Raj and Vivek Joshi..[Read our coverage of the hearing here]