The Central Administrative Tribunal has slammed Commonwealth Games Organising Committee for "wasting" its time by not disclosing about the appointment of security chief for the sporting event while a case on it was going on and slapped a fine of Rs 20,000 on it.
"This is nothing but a vexatious and frivolous litigation instituted by the impleading applicant (OC) by abusing the process of law... It is necessary to prevent any person or party from instituting or continuing vexatious proceedings especially habitually and without reasonable ground," the Bengaluru Bench of the Tribunal said.
The observation came while hearing the matter of the appointment of an Additional Director General (ADG) for Games security, a post which was lying vacant for more than a year owing to a legal tussle between the Union government and a senior IPS officer R.P. Sharma.
The OC had in 2008 sent a proposal to the Ministry of Home Affairs recommending the name of Sharma, a 1987 batch Karnataka cadre officer, for the job on the basis of a report made by a Search Committee.
Based on recommendations of both the OC and the Karnataka government, Sharma also attended different CWG security-related meetings in Delhi when the proposal was awaiting clearance by the MHA.
However, Sharma's name was not cleared after "careful consideration" of the matter by the ministry of youth affairs and sports.
Aggrieved over the rejection, Sharma filed an appeal with CAT Bengaluru Bench in January 2009 seeking its direction to the Centre to consider his application and to issue clearance for his deputation.
Hearing the matter, the CAT had in April 2009 directed the respondent (MHA) to act as per the instruction given in a Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) circular stating that Sharma is eligible to be considered by the committee under the chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary for screening the cases of deputation.
The court also asked the MHA to place Sharma's case before the committee and to submit their recommendations to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (if the recommendations are positive) and to complete all the required procedure before May 30, 2010.
However, Sharma again approached the CAT in June praying that the government has disobeyed its order and the court issued a show cause notice to Madhukar Gupta, the then Union home secretary and asked him to appear before it for not abiding with the court's order.
Meanwhile, the Central government filed an appeal in the Bengaluru high court against the CAT's order for erroneously summoning Gupta citing his retirement and argued that only a serving officer can be summoned.
The CAT then issued notice to home secretary G.K. Pillai and sought his reply over the matter. On August 2, the counsels for Central government submitted that they would need help of Mohan Parasaran, additional solicitor general of India, for the contempt proceedings.
Surprisingly, after over a year of legal battle, the OC in its one of submissions recently said that "there is no further requirement of ADG Security as the Organising Committee has decided to avail the services of an officer from the Indian Police Service of the rank of additional director general of police in view of the security reasons and various threats of breach."
Unhappy over it, the CAT said "We have no hesitation to say that this proceeding is nothing but vexatious litigation by the concerned party which has resulted in the wastage of time of the court too besides of the Registry as well as of the other learned members of the bar who were waiting for their cases.
"Hence to prevent and discourage such kind of proceedings as in the instant... We consider, as a warning, to award costs," it said and directed the impleading applicant (OC) to pay Rs 20,000 to Sharma. The court has decided to hear the case related to contempt proceedings on August 27.