Pankaj S/o Subhash Bhamare v. The State of Maharashtra & others
Case Details
- 1 - cp294.22.odt IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE OF BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD CONTEMPT PETITION NO. 294 OF 2022 IN WRIT PETITION NO. 990 OF 2022 Pankaj S/o Subhash Bhamare Petitioner Versus The State of Maharashtra & others Respondents Mr. S. C. Yeramwar, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. S. P. Tiwari, AGP for respondent No. 1. CORAM : RAVINDRA V. GHUGE & ANIL L. PANSARE, JJ. DATE : 16th JUNE, 2022. PER COURT : 1. Having heard the learned Advocates for the respective parties and no specifc defence having been put forth, this was a ft case for imposing punishment on the members of the Scheduled Tribe Caste Certifcate Scrutiny Committee, Nandurbar, for having violated the directions of this Court. The material before us would indicate that it is a willful and intentional violation. For the sake of clarity, we are recording the factors as under :- - 2 - cp294.22.odt (A) Roznama of the fle pertaining to the present petitioner indicates that the fle was closed for judgment on 27th January, 2020. (B) The National Lockdown was declared on 23rd March, 2020, effective from midnight of 24th March, 2020. (C) The Lockdown restrictions were gradually lifted in between December 2020 and January 2021. (D) The petitioner approached this Court in Writ Petition No. 990/2022 and by order dated 19th January, 2022, the Committee was directed to deliver it’s order within one month as the matter was reserved for judgment. (E) Till today, there are twenty four validity certifcates available with twenty four blood relatives of the petitioner, who are part of four blood relatives branches of the family tree. Seven validity certifcates have been issued by this Court and Seventeen validity certifcates are issued by the Committee. (F) The Committee re-opened the fle as they found that there are four branches, notwithstanding the fact that the origin (Mool Purush) would indicate that - 3 - cp294.22.odt all the members of these four branches are blood relatives. (G) On 20th April, 2021, a Roznama appears in the fle indicating that a relative of the petitioner namely Prakash Hiralal Bhamre, submitted a letter dated 8th April, 2021, stating that there are four branches of the family tree and hence the Committee decided to re-open the proceedings for completing the certifcate formalities. (H) The fle does not indicate any further step taken by the Committee after 20th April, 2021, and a submission was made before this Court in Writ Petition No. 990/2022 when the order was passed on 19th January, 2022 that the order in the matter would be delivered within one month as the fnal arguments are completed. 2. Considering the above and since the petitioner is a 41 years old person who has acquired job around 10 years ago and has received a show cause notice of termination if he does not submit his caste validity, that we are not proceeding to convict the members of the Committee, which we could have done since the record is glaring - 4 - cp294.22.odt before us. However, we fnd it necessary that the members of the Committee must learn a lesson for causing miseries to the litigants. 3.
Decision
In view of the above, taking into account that there are twenty four validity certifcates amongst the blood relatives of the petitioner covering four branches of the family, we are imposing costs of Rs.10,000/- per member. The learned AGP submits on instructions that this cost amount would be donated to the petitioner by each member and henceforth the Committee members will not commit such acts. 4. In view of the above, this contempt petition is disposed off by recording that the Committee members shall each pay an amount of Rs. 10,000/- to the petitioner on or before 30 th June, 2022, and shall pass a fnal order in his proceedings, on or before 15th July, 2022. The petitioner can place a copy of this order before his employer with a request to refrain from initiating coercive action. GENERAL DIRECTIONS 5. We fnd that there are hundreds of contempt petitions which are being fled in caste/tribe validity matters. Our Bench has - 5 - cp294.22.odt noticed that about ten matters under the Contempt of Courts Act are coming up practically every day in this assignment. What we fnd is that though the High Court repeatedly passes orders of granting a time-frame for deciding the pending validation proceedings, the Committee does not budge after the time-frame has expired and merrily ignores the time-frame. Actually, as duties are cast upon the Committees to decide the proceedings within a particular time-frame as ordered by this Court, the Committee should be vigilant enough to fle a civil application in this Court requesting for extension of time and not relax in their offces ignoring the time-frame of the High Court thereby compelling the claimants to fle contempt proceedings in this Court by spending time, energy and money. 6. In view of the above, we deem it appropriate to direct the Commissioner Tribal Development/Member Secretary, Tribal Development, Shri Anupkumar Yadav, I.A.S., to issue strict instructions to all the Committee members in the State of Maharashtra as under :- (a) To ensure that civil applications, mentioning reasons for the delay caused, are fled in the High Court to seek extension of time in whichever matter the time-frame is about to expire. - 6 - cp294.22.odt (b) Such application should be fled at least four weeks prior to the expiration of the time-frame. (c) The Committee members should not wait for the claimants to approach this Court by fling a contempt petition. 7. If contempt petitions appear before us henceforth i.e. after the passing of this order, we would be constrained to penalise the Committee members with costs, save and except, in cases where claimants are the cause of delay and the record indicates that the claimants have deliberately delayed the matter. 8. We expect the Principal Secretary, Tribal Development, to issue these directions within one week of the receipt of this order. 9. We request the learned AGP to transmit this order to the Principal Secretary, Tribal Development, immediately after it is uploaded on the offcial website of the Bombay High Court. ( ANIL L. PANSARE ) Judge dyb ( RAVINDRA V. GHUGE ) Judge