HARIJAI SINGH Vs. VIJAY KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) When this Court was seized of, Writ Petition filed by the "Common Cause, A Registered Society "with regard to the alleged misuse and arbitrary exercise of discretionary power by the Petroleum and Gas Ministry in relation to the allotment of retail outlets for Petroleum products and L.P.G. Dealership, from discretionary quota, a news item in box with a caption "Pumps for all"was published in the daily newspaper "The Sunday Tribune"dated March 10, 1996 which is reproduced hereunder :-

(2.) A similar news item was also published in the Hindi newspaper "Punjab Kesari "dated March 10, 1996. The English translation of which is as follows :-

(3.) Since, the aforesaid news items contained an allegation that two sons of a senior judge of the Supreme Court and two sons of the Chief Justice of India were also favoured with the allotments of petrol outlets from the discretionary quota of Ministry and, therefore, by our order dated March 13, 1996, we issued a notice to the Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to file an affidavit offering his comments and response to the facts stated in the aforesaid two news items. Pursuant to the said notice. Shri Vijay L. Kelkar, Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India, filed his affidavit dated March 20, 1996 stating that since the allegation regarding allotment under the discretionary quota in favour of two sons of a senior Judge of the Supreme Court are vague and in the absence of specific names, it is difficult to deal with the same. Thereafter when the matter again came up before this Court on March 21, 1996, Shri Altaf Ahmad, learned Additional Solicitor General stated that he would look into the records and file further affidavit of a responsible officer giving response to the other allegations regarding relationship of VIPS. We, therefore, granted time for the purpose and at the same time directed the relevant files to be produced in Court. It was thereafter that Shri Devi Dayal, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India filed his affidavit dated March 28, 1996. In paragraph 5 of his affidavit, he made a categorical statement that there is no allotment in favour of son/sons of any Supreme Court Judge. After verification of records and affidavits referred to above, we found that the news items referred to above were patently false and, therefore, by our Order dated March 27, 1996, we initiated contempt proceedings against the Editors and Publishers of the daily "The Sunday Tribune", Chandigarh and "The Punjab Kesari", Jalandhar and issued notices to them to show cause why they may not be punished for the contempt of this Court.