Supreme Court fines Centre for plea on CISF cop’s sacking case

NEW DELHI: The SC slammed the govt for clogging courts with needless appeals and imposed Rs 25,000 cost for challenging a well-reasoned Punjab and Haryana high court order that had quashed the Centre’s decision to terminate a CISF official who helped a couple elope . The official was removed from his job in 2010 on grounds of misconduct for being absent from duty and for conniving with the daughter of a CISF constable.

We keep shouting pendency, pendency. Who is the biggest litigant, SC asks govt

He had allegedly helped her elope and marry his friend at Arya Samaj Mandir. He had approached the HC, which directed his reinstatement with 25% back wages after which Centre filed an appeal in the apex court.

At the outset of the hearing on Wednesday, a bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan questioned govt for filing the appeal and said that Centre’s decision to terminate the job was disproportionate. The bench reminded that govts had been contributing to ever-increasing pendency by filing unnecessary cases like the present one and said it was a fit case to impose fine.

“We keep shouting pendency, pendency. Who is the biggest litigant? The high court granted him relief. Instead of giving an opinion that you will not go to the Supreme Court, you still proceed against him. We fail to understand as to why the Union of India and others have approached this court to assail the HC order,” the bench told additional solicitor general S D Sanjay.

The govt tried to impress upon the court that it was a case of gross indiscipline as the CISF official was involved in the elopement of a girl, but the apex court upheld the order of the HC which had held that the girl was an adult on the date of marriage and charge against the official did not stand.

“Her statement has been recorded and reflects that she got married at her own volition and she was an adult on the date of her marriage. The said charge hence does not survive,” the HC had said.