IAS officers should be shown the door, if they don't comply with court orders

Chennai: Chiding IAS officers who do not comply with the orders of the court, the Madras High Court has come down heavily on them and observed they should be shown the door and their IAS posts must be stripped off.

In case of non-compliance of the orders of the Court, it is time and again made clear that fine will be secondary and imprisonment primary, a division bench of Justices S Vaidyanathan and R Vijayakumar said recently.

"Of late, it is reported that several IAS officers, dealing with applications under Section 80-A of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1971, are not complying with the orders of this Court, in spite of specific instructions issued every now and then, fixing the outer time limit for disposal of the matters."

"Such Officers, who are least bothered about the orders of this Court and are not doing their duty, must be shown the doors and their IAS posts must be stripped off, as ignoring the orders of this Court would definitely amount to dishonesty in their duty, besides disobedience," the bench said.

The bench was dismissing two writ petitions, one from AHM Traders, by its authorised representative S Abubakkar and the other from S Mohamed Ali & Co., by its proprietor S Mohammed Ali, seeking to quash the lock and seal and demolition notices of the Greater Chennai Corporation issued between April and June this year.

The bench also imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on the two firms as their act amounted to 'forum shopping' and they somehow attempted to pull out their cases from the bench after sensing the mood of the court.

The amount should be paid by them jointly to the Sudaroli Social Service Trust in Salem district and Pasu Madam at Tiruverkadu, within two weeks, the bench added.

The case of the petitioners was that they had put up a shed near their shops. When the local civic body officials initiated action and issued lock and seal and demolition notices, they moved the High Court challenging the same. Sensing the mood of the court that it was likely to dismiss the petitions, they indulged in 'forum shopping' by filing applications before some other court. The bench, however, dismissed the petitions as devoid of merits, last week.

What prompted the bench to chide the IAS officers was the alleged non-implementation of the earlier orders of the bench and the inordinate delay on their part in disposing of the applications of the petitioners against the demolition notices.