HC fines state `25K in contempt plea

Jul 19, 2013 |

Age Correspondent

mumbai

Acting on a contempt petition, the Bombay high court on Thursday pulled up the state for not complying with its earlier order and slapped a fine of `25,000. The case relates to two Solapur-based schoolteachers being out of jobs since 2001 after the school was de-recognised.
The division bench of Justices S.C. Dharma-dhikari and S.B. Shukre, which was hearing the matter, observed that the state was giving lame excuses and shirking its responsibility. “What is the government? You can’t say that you have no responsibility. The direction of the court should be strictly complied with,” said Justice Dharmadhikari.
The issue dates back to 2001, when a Solapur was de-recognised by the education department due to the internal disputes in the school’s management. Consequently, teachers ended up losing jobs. However, two teachers Saida Daud and Mehboobi Shaikh sought legal help.
After a prolonged legal battle, in 2009, the deputy director of state education department gave a report in their favour, stating that the teachers were not responsible for the school’s de-recognition.
“The first order was passed on April 4 last year by the high court in two writ petitions. The court then directed the state of Maharashtra through the private secretary school education and sports department to consider their representation within six weeks,” advocate Ashok B. Tajane, representing the petitioners, told The Asian Age.
The court then issued a notice to the government, asking it to comply with its order on February 7 this year. The government had earlier informed that the order was complied with, however, the claims were found to be false.
Advocate Tajane said that when there was a dispute in relation to the mismanagement in the school regarding the ratio of students to teachers, the state education department could have cut down on the number of classes.
On Thursday, when the court found shortfalls on the part of the government, an irate division bench penalised it and slapped a fine of `25,000.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/243932" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-1213d7e08a0d98425be74c2a2ae1204d" value="form-1213d7e08a0d98425be74c2a2ae1204d" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="88336292" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>