Steer Clear Of Unfairness At The Behest Of Political Executive: Calcutta High Court Warns District Magistrate

This order was passed in a writ petition filed by one Biswanath Chowdhary, who had alleged that the rules laid down by the Bar Council of India had been broken inasmuch as a law college, affiliated with the Cooch Behar University, had been established in the same premises as another educational institute.

Background

Allegedly, the building of Uttarayan Law College was also being used for conducting classes for the B. Ed. course. It was submitted that a law college cannot be run from the same premises, as per the Bar Council guidelines.

When such allegations were made, a Division Bench comprising of Justices Sanjib Banerjee and Hiranmay Bhattacharyya had promptly ordered the District Magistrate of Cooch Behar, namely Pawan Kadyan, to visit the said premises and conduct a thorough investigation of how the law college had been functioning.

On the next date, when the District Magistrate failed to file a report and it was revealed that he did not conduct any investigation, the Court initiated suo moto contempt proceedings the officer for failing to follow the instructions given to him by the Court.

During the hearing on Monday, the District Magistrate acknowledged that he had made a mistake. He further gave the Court a second report, along with copies of photographs that had been taken on his visit to Matikata and Jatrapur. He expressed his regret and gave the Court unqualified apologies for not following the Court's original orders.

After being presented with a second report and an apology, the Court decided to drop the charges of contempt against the District Magistrate.

"In the light of the subsequent report prepared by the District Magistrate and the repentance shown for the earlier mistake, the District Magistrate is discharged. The contempt proceedings are dropped," it observed.

The Court went on to say that the duty of the District Magistrate is to the citizens and that he should operate without any arbitrariness or bias.

"Since Mr. Kadyan has a long career, the court wishes him well but reminds him that his obligation every step of the way in his official capacity is to the citizen and to steer clear of the road of unfairness, unreasonableness and arbitrariness, particularly, at the behest of the political executive," the Court said.

Since the report and the photographs have been submitted to the Court, the hearing for the matter has been scheduled to 21^st December, 2020.

Case Title: Biswanath Chowdhury v. Chairman, National Council for Teachers Education & Ors.

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