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Gauri Shankar Pd. Rai v. Sajal Chakroborty, Chief Secretary, Govt. of Jharkhand & Ors.

Contempt Petition (Civil) · Neutral citation not assigned (Contempt Petition (Civil) No. 421 of 2014)Decided 9 Apr 2015
Contempt Petition (Civil) No. 421 of 2014
Justice V. Gopala Gowda · Justice C. Nagappan

Background

This is an interim order, not a final judgment. Contempt petitions, heard with 16 connected petitions, complained that the State of Jharkhand had not complied with the Court's direction of 23 April 2014 to regularise the services of ad hoc engineers in its Road Construction Department.

Decision Breakdown

This is an interim order, not a final judgment. The Court found only partial compliance: regularisation had been granted from 1987 as Assistant Engineers, not from 1981 as Junior Engineers as the Court had required. It gave the respondents one more opportunity, directing them to comply in full and file a compliance report within four weeks. The matter was to come up again after four weeks, and no finding of contempt or punishment was recorded.

Lesson Learnt

There is no final ruling yet on the contempt petitions. A court enforcing its own directions may give a government department a further chance to comply fully before deciding whether to punish for contempt.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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