One of the officials is a key bureaucrat in the AP Government while the other two are top officials in the Police Department. Now, the AP High Court lashed out at AP DGP Damodar Goutam Sawang, Principal Secretary (Home Department) Kumar Vishwajeet and the Inspector General of Police as they attended a court hearing related to ‘Contempt of Court’. The High Court made strong statements saying that the attitude of some officials was shocking as they consider themselves above the law and that they are witnessing such behaviour only in AP.
Why such negligence?
The Court made it clear that irrespective of designation, everyone must adhere to the Indian Constitution adding that the officials cannot take court rulings for granted. The Court made the statements on AP DGP Damodar Goutam Sawang, Principal Secretary (Home Department) Kumar Vishwajeet and the Inspector General of Police as they attended a court hearing related to ‘Contempt of Court’. The Court said that when the DGP had attended earlier they had an opinion on the latter as a sincere officer, but now that situation has changed.
What exactly is the issue?
Ramarao who works as an SI filed a Contempt of Court case as he was not promoted to the post of CI despite the explicit instructions of the AP High Court. On having received court notices on December 29, the AP DGP Goutam Sawang, Principal Secretary (Home Department) Kumar Vishwajeet and the Inspector General of Police failed to attend. This led the Court to adjourn the hearing to January 25. However, with the defendants failing to attend the hearing again on January 25, the court having vented its ire served a non-bailable warrant to the AP DGP. Later, the warrant was withdrawn at the request of the lawyer on behalf of the government and the police officials were instructed to attend the court on January 27. Hence, on Wednesday all the defendants attended the hearing. When the Judge questioned the DGP as to when he had received the orders, the latter tried to enquire about the details. To this, the Court told the DGP that it was not his office and that he needs to provide a complete report with all the details by the next date of hearing which would be held on February 25.
