The Assam government is at the receiving end of judiciary, which caught them for misleading the court with wrong facts twice in a week. The first, came through an observation of the Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia who expressed his dismay over the Assam government at its bid to hoodwink him by painting a rosy picture about existence of adequate infrastructure facilities for judges, lawyers and litigants in the lower courts.
In his remark which has come as a huge embarrassment for the government, the CJI, who was on an official tour of Assam and Meghalaya, last week, narrated his experience stating that impressed by the infrastructure facilities shown to him on paper, he wanted to see it with his own eyes.
However, Assam government officials pressed the panic button, when he expressed his desire to go for on-the-spot verification.
Later, embarrassed officials conveyed to Chief Justice Kapadia that most of the facilities mentioned in the infrastructure status reports sent to the apex court existed only on paper.
“Last week, I went to Rajasthan and this week to Assam and Meghalaya. Since the reports said buildings had come up, I insisted on seeing the site. The officials apologised to me saying all that was stated in the report was false,” the CJI stated in his court. If this was the remark of the CJI, a division bench of Guwahati HC reprimanded Assam government for submitting a wrong affidavit in a reply to a PIL on alleged misappropriation of Rs 12.16 crores.