Supreme Court Issues Notice In A Contempt Petition Seeking Appropriate Guidelines In Appointing Executives To SPCBs

The petition was filed under Sec. 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 which provides for the punishment of contempt of Court read with Rule 3 of Contempt of Supreme Court Rules, 1975. The petitioner was aggrieved by the non compliance of the judgment in the case of Techi Tagi Tara v. Rajendra Singh Bhandari & Ors. (2017) passed by a division bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta directed the Executives of all States frame appropriate guidelines or recruitment rules in accordance with the requirement of State Pollution Control Board with a deadline of six months.

This direction came in the view of ensuring suitability of experts and professionals in the SPCBs. The bench took note of the Bhattarcharya Committee (1984), Belliappa Committee (1990) and the Menon Committee(2005) and granted liberty to the public spirited persons for issuing quo warranto writs against Chairman or members of the said SPCBs. The direction was issued in the backdrop of an appeal to the Top Court from a 2016 order passed by the NGT in Rajendra Singh Bhandari v. State of Uttarakhand directing State Governments to reconsider the current appointments in SPCBs and further laying down new guidelines.

The contempt petition was filed by Mr. Amitabh Srivastava, a lawyer by profession, in the capacity of such 'public spirited public' the non compliance of the directive shook his conscience with regards to the principles of Art. 48A and Art. 51A of the Constitution of India.

The prayer of the petitioner emphasis upon the necessity for placing a benchmark in the appointment of SPCBs in conformity with the statute, recruitment rules, guidelines formulated by various committees as well as the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee under the Water Act , 1974 and Air Act, 1981. The petition invokes the jurisdiction of Supreme Court under Art. 129 which declared it as a court of record having power to punish for contempt. "Misunderstanding or own understanding of the Court's order would not be a permissible defence. It was observed that power to punish a person for contempt is undoubtedly a powerful weapon in the hands of Judiciary but that by itself operates as a string of caution and cannot be used unless the Court is satisfied beyond doubt that the person has deliberately and intentionally violated the order of the Court." The petition read.

The Court while issuing notice in the matter granted liberty to Adv. Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi and Adv. Ashima Mandla, counsels for the petitioner, for serving notice on all the State counsels. The matter will now be heard on 29.01.2021.

Case Name: Amitabh Srivastava v. Rajendra Kumar Tiwari & Ors.

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