Nagpur: The Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court on Friday refused to exempt the Education Department Principal Secretary and Upper Secretary from the contempt proceedings for non-payment of wages of teachers of specially-abled children.
A division bench comprising Justice Prithviraj Chavan and Justice Urmila-Joshi Phalke kept the execution of Non-Bailable Warrant (NBW) against them in abeyance till November 29.
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The HC was hearing a contempt petition filed by Chitra Meher and others, working as teachers of specially-abled children.
“Normally, the contemnors ought to have remained personally present to get NBW cancelled. Nevertheless, since there is a substantial compliance of an order of depositing the amount as stated and also in view of the fact that petitioners’ counsel Anand Parchure has not raised any objection, we deem it proper to keep the execution of NBW against both contemnors in abeyance until further orders,” the court said.
Earlier, Principal Secretary Ranjit Singh Deol and Upper Secretary Santosh Gaikwad tendered unconditional apologies through an affidavit filed by Additional Government Pleader Kalyani Deshpande. They informed that after HC’s September 14 order of granting them last chance, the government had issued an order releasing Rs 6.19 crore towards the pending wages of the special teachers.
Senior counsel Anand Jaiswal, who appeared for both contemnors, informed that the Director of Education (Primary) had passed an order on November 1 where Rs 42 lakh were deposited into account of eight petitioners and Rs 5.77 lakh in accounts of 110 petitioners. He assured the bench that both contemnors would remain personally present on November 29.
Both Deol and Gaikwad had prayed for recalling HC’s Wednesday order asking the Police Commissioner to issue NBW against them for failure to comply with eight HC orders. The Commissioner was asked to produce them in court on Monday at 10.30 am.
The affidavit was strongly opposed by petitioner’s counsel, contending that both still did not appear in HC, which is a pre-condition for cancellation of warrant. Before seeking time to file a reply to their affidavits, he said they cleared arrears of some teachers only.
“Gaikwad must have remained present today, as he was directed by this court on September 14 to remain present for framing the charges under the Contempt of Courts Act,” the court said.
