High Court pulls up bureaucrats

High Court pulls up bureaucrats
Bangalore, April 21, DH News Service:

Top bureaucrats of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) and Secretary, Home department heard an earful from the High Court division bench on Wednesday for not complying with the Court orders in three different cases.


BDA Commissioner Siddaiah, who appeared before the division bench comprising Justice K L Manjunath and Justice B V Nagarathna for non-compliance of the order to reallocate a site, was the first to get a dressing down.

“The senior officers are least bothered about the Court order. Your legal cell is deactivated. They don’t do any work. They will neither inform you about the notice nor about the Court orders. Even if they tell you, you tend to neglect it,” the bench said.
The petitioner Suma Madhav Rao had moved the contempt petition following the delay in allocating an alternative site. The High Court had directed BDA to grant her an alternative site after the latter failed to allot her site at Visvesvaraya Layout.

Contempt petition

Bharat Lal Meena, BBMP Commissioner, who appeared in connection with a contempt petition for failing to demolish a building which was constructed in violation of norms, also faced the wrath of the same bench.

The BBMP submitted that four officers, B R Mudduraj, Executive Engineer (EE), B S Prasad, in-charge superintendent engineer (SE), HT Madhusudhan, Incharge Executive Engineer, N Keeranaik, Executive Engineer all from BBMP have been suspended. T N Bettaswamayya, AEE, N S Revanna, AE, N P Chandrashekarayya, EE, L Raghu, EE and H Honnegowda, AEE, who were on deputation from Urban Development Department (UDD) have been sent back and has been recommended for action.The Court wanted to know whether the Commissioner had no power to suspend them. The latter said he does not.
The bashing continued for the second day for Abhijt Das Gupta, Home Secretary, who submitted that it would be difficult to allocate the sites to STF members.

Hearing the contempt petition by the Complainants Bhaskar Rai and Lingappa, who had moved the High Court over the delay in the promised site, the bench expressed its unhappiness over the delay and directed to comply or file an affidavit over the delay.

Finally, when the contempt petition related to the demoltion of Vasuki Subramanya temple came up the bench was furious with the functioning of the bureaucracy saying, "It is going beyond control of the rule of the law."