Plant saplings, make them grow: HC penalty in contempt case

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has announced a unique penalty for a government engineer facing charges of contempt of court - plant tree saplings and ensure a large majority of them survive.

A division bench of Justices J.K. Maheshwari and Anjuli Palo on Tuesday directed Public Health Engineering Department's Chief Engineer (Gwalior zone), S.K. Andhwan to plant 200 saplings and ensure 160 of them grow up. If he fails to do so, he will undergo one month imprisonment.

The issue was related to a job in the department on compassionate grounds.

Petitioner Ashish Awasthi said that he had sought a job on compassionate grounds after his father died in 2014 while in service but was turned down. 

His lawyer Shailesh Mishra said that PHE Department had issued an order that eligible dependents of employees who died during service will be appointed on compassionate grounds. But when Awasthi applied in 2017, his application was rejected on the grounds that this order was issued two years after his father's death.

Awasthi then moved court, challenging the department's order and a single-judge bench had directed the department to decide his case not on the basis of when his father died, but when the order for appointment on compassionate grounds was issued.

The department rejected Awasthi's application despite the court order and he filed a revision petition in the High Court.

Though Andhwan told the court that appointment on compassionate grounds has been made, but the division bench held him guilty of contempt of court for not appearing in the court previously.IANS