On Thursday, the Andhra Pradesh HC found five IAS officers guilty of contempt of court and sentenced three of them to jail terms ranging from two weeks to a month.
The court, after hearing a contempt petition moved by one Tallapaka Savitramma of Kanupur village, Nellore district, found the officials guilty of wilful disobedience of the court’s orders. However, Justice Battu Devanand suspended the operation of the sentence by four weeks on the request of the officials.
While Senior IAS Officer Manmohan Singh, the then principal secretary for revenue, was sentenced to four weeks in jail and a fine of Rs 1,000, principal secretary for finance SS Rawat was sentenced to one month in jail and fined Rs 2,000. Failing to pay the fine would increase the jail term by another week, the court said.
Nellore district collector Revu Mutyala Raju has been sentenced to two weeks in jail and fined Rs 1,000, while KNV Chakradhar and MV Seshagiri Babu, who previously worked as Nellore district collectors, were fined Rs 2,000 fine each.
Savitramma had moved a petition in 2017 after her assigned land was taken away by the state government for the setting up of the National Institute for Mentally Handicapped. Considering her plea, the court had directed the government to compensate her along with the others within three months.
As no damages was paid, she moved a contempt petition in 2018. The court issued notices to the respondents and, after perusal of counter-affidavits filed by them, impleaded officials who had been Nellore district collectors during the period of litigation as well as principal secretaries of finance. After impleading the officials, the compensation amount was finally paid on March 30, 2021, a delay of about three years.
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