The Andhra Pradesh High Court in a recent judgement issued show cause notice to IAS Gulzar N asking as to why orders should not be given to remove him from service.
The HC is furious over Gulzar N for not implementing court's order and found the IAS guilty of contempt of court. Passing strong observation the court said that that he was unfit to be in govt service.
Gulzar N, 1999-batch IAS of Andhra Pradesh cadre, is currently on central deputation serving as joint secretary in food and public distribution ministry. The case, however dates back to 2021 when Gulzar N was principal secretary finance in the state government.
What is the case?
The case is related to an application for compassionate appointment by one Basava Srinivas, younger son of B Saraswati Devi, who died in service working as assistant commercial tax officer.
The state government rejected the application saying that husband of the deceased, who is also the father of the applicant is getting pension after retiring from private bank. Besides, the stage government found Srinivas older than the permissible age to consider for the job he applied for.
Perturbed by the decision of state government, Srinivas moved high court in 2021. The HC set aside the proceedings rejecting his application and asked the petitioner to apply for the job afresh.
The Andhra Pradesh High Court also directed the officials to take a decision on his application within four weeks.
However, the state government failed to take action on the application within the stipulated time period of four weeks. Srinivas he moved a contempt petition as the HC orders were not complied by.
As soon as Srinivas filed contempt case in HC, principal secretary Gulzar N once again rejected the fresh application on the same grounds of him being overage and his father getting pension. Later he filed memo with the court. As the orders have been complied, the HC closed the contempt petition.
Stung by this Srinivas moved a fresh petition before the HC challenging the second rejection order passed by Gulzar on the same reasons which were already set aside by the high court in the earlier decision.
HC got furious over Gulzar for ignoring court's verdict
The bench of Justice Gannamaneni Ramakrishna Prasad in the HC court after hearing the arguments of both the sides observed that Gulzar has no respect to the ‘constitutional governance' and he is unfit to hold the position as a public servant at the ‘pleasure' of the govt, as he has blatantly and explicitly exhibited utter disregard not only to the settled principles of law but also to the orders passed by the high court. He (Gulzar) ‘sat in appeal' and passed an order consciously frustrating a judicial verdict.
By such conduct, he had violated the very inviolable ‘Principal Doctrinal Barrier' which is the ‘Lakshman Rekha' for the executive. The said officer has made mockery of the ‘Rule of Law' and the ‘Separation of Powers', said the high court.Setting aside the second rejection order, the high court issued show cause notice to Gulzar, as to why the court should not direct the govt to terminate him from service on the premise that he is unfit to hold the job in govt service under Article 310 of the Constitution.
The high court also issued another show cause notice as to why he shall not be prosecuted and be punished for contempt of court.
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