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IAS officer held guilty of contempt

By IndianMandarins- 28 Feb 2019
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The Madras High Court has sentenced M K Shanmuga Sundaram (IAS:1997:UP), serving as Development Commissioner, Madras Export Processing Zone (MEPZ) and its Assistant DC N Rajalingam to two weeks’ imprisonment in a contempt of court case.

 

Justice Muralidaran held the two officials guilty of disobeying orders passed by the Madurai Bench in favor of beach sand mining firms V V Minerals and Transworld Garnet India Pvt Ltd. He also directed them to pay a fine of Rs 5,000 each within three weeks or undergo two more weeks of simple imprisonment.

 

The issue relates to MEPZ having passed an order on 28 October 2016, suspending the Letter of Permission (LoP) granted to the beach sand mining firms in 1995 to set up their export oriented units in the SEZ. The suspension was ordered on the basis of a letter received from the then Tirunelveli Collector, accusing the firms of engaging in illegal mining.

 

The two firms filed individual writ petitions in the Madurai Bench of the Madras HC, challenging the suspension orders, and obtained an interim stay on 25 May 2017. In the meantime, the 1995 LoP expired on 22 April 2017, and the firms applied for renewal. The officials, in turn, issued notices on 09 October 2017, questioning why renewal should not be denied.

 

Taking exception to such action, the writ petitioners filed the present contempt of court applications on the ground that refusal to renew the LoP amounted to disobeying the stay orders passed by the court. The petitioners’ counsel, S. Meenakshi Sundaram, contended that the officials had deliberately flouted court orders by not renewing the LoP.

 

Accepting the contention, the judge said, “The act of the respondent contemners certainly amounts to willful and deliberate defiance of the order of the court. A reading of the proceedings dated October 9, 2017 shows that such proceedings have been passed after recording the order of interim stay passed by this court. Therefore, by no stretch of imagination, the proceedings can be said to have been passed accidentally.”

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