SANNAKALAIAH Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Complainants have filed the present contempt petition seeking to initiate action against the accused under the provisions of Ss. 11 and 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 for willful disobedience of the order dtd. 2/12/2019 made in Writ petition No.51538 of 2019 wherein the learned Single Judge, while disposing of the writ petition, permitted the petitioners to submit a fresh representation for redressal of their grievance before the competent authority and further directed the competent authority to consider the representation and pass appropriate orders keeping in mind the orders passed by this Court in writ petitions referred to above in not later than twelve weeks from the date of receipt of representations to be made by the petitioners.

(2.) According to the learned counsel for complainants, the representation was made on 4/1/2020 and the same ought to have been considered by the authorities and appropriate orders should have been passed on or before 28/3/2020. Since the authorities have not complied with the order within the time stipulated, the complainants were forced file the present contempt petition on 15/12/2021. In response to the notice issued by this Court in the present contempt petition, the learned High Court Government Pleader has filed memo dtd. 2/3/2023 along with endorsement dtd. 28/11/2022, and thereby, submits that the order passed by the learned Single Judge has been complied with.

(3.) The fact remains that when complainants approach this Court in the year 2019, this Court, passed the order as back on 2/12/2019, directing the authorities to consider the representation of the petitioners keeping in mind the orders passed in writ petition No.29604-608 of 2018 and connected matters, and to extend the similar relief, the authorities have not considered the same till the contempt petition came to be filed on 15/12/2021. In terms of the order passed by the learned Single Judge, the authorities should have considered and passed orders on or before 28 th March, 2020, as they received the representation on 4/1/2020, thereby the same has not been done and the complainants are unnecessarily driven to this Court by spending litigation expenses by undergoing mental trauma and financial loss. When this Court has passed the specific order directing the authorities concerned to consider the representation to be made by the petitioners within the stipulated time, it is the duty of the authorities to consider and pass appropriate orders and if they have any difficulty, they ought have filed an application before the Court seeking extension of time. The same has not been done in the present case. Now, after issuance of notice in this contempt petition, the accused have filed memo along with endorsement dtd. 28/11/2022, i.e. after filing of contempt petition on 15/12/2021, and thereby there is delay of more than one year eight months in compliance of the orders of learned Single Judge. Moreover, no relief is granted to the complainants which is nothing but creating one more litigation to complainants. Thereby, the accused No.1 is liable to pay cost to each of the complainants within a period of three weeks from today. In view of the above, we pass the following: