Court disciplines Tonk collector for defiance

An indifferent reply at contempt proceedings got the Tonk district collector caught up at the Jaipur bench of Rajasthan high court. Displeased with the response of the senior administrator, the court ordered him to remain seated in the court throughout the day. However, the court let him go after he after he apologised.

Tonk collector Sube Singh Yadav had appeared before the court on Friday in response to a contempt case. Despite previous orders of the court, the Tonk district administration had not removed encroachments from Palai panchayat area. At the contempt hearing on Friday, the collector reportedly said that the task assigned was not his responsibility and told the court that removing encroachments was a responsibility of panchayat. This argument was not well received by the court. 

Apparently, the bureaucrat was not accustomed to the decorum and to have him disciplined the court asked him to wait on the premises throughout the day. “He was there sitting in the section for litigants for nearly four hours before the court accepted his apology and permitted him to leave,” said a witness to the collector’s ordeal. The defiance of district administration was obvious in the case, as it was on a petition of the Palai panchayat Sarpanch against encroachment on panchayat land that the high court on February 14, 2017, had ordered for clearing the land. The court had ordered the district administration to comply with the petitioner’s request or explain its limitation in a 15-day period. However, the district administration took no notice of the orders and even when the matter moved to contempt proceedings they skipped the hearing of August 21, 2017. It was on the day that the court had summoned the officers on bailable warrants of Rs 25,000 for the next hearing that took place on Friday.