Supreme Court Stays Order Sentencing Major General of Indian Army And Defence Estates Officer To Civil Imprisonment

The Supreme Court  on Thursday stayed the execution of an order sentencing a Major General of Indian Army and Defence Estates officers to civil imprisonment for 2 months for alleged violation of a decree in a civil suit .

A three-judge Bench of CJI Bobde, Justice Bopanna and Justice Ramasubramanian passed the order after a mentioning was made by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta.

The Central Government has approached the Supreme Court challenging Telangana High Court's refusal to stay the execution of the order.

SG Mehta informed the Court that the matter was related to imprisonment of a Major General, incharge of Telangana and Andhra, in a dispute regarding a piece of land in the cantonment area.

 Following SG's mentioning, the bench agreed to issue notice and stay the execution of the order.

"Issue notice. In the meantime, there shall be stay of operation of the order dated January 27, 2021 passed by the City Civil Court, Secunderabad..," the bench said.

According to the execution order dated January 27, 2021, that has been stayed by the Apex Court, the JDRs( Defence Estate officers and General officer in Commandment) were ordered to be sent to civil prison for their wilful disobedience and violation of the Trial Court's decree of permanent injunction.

The execution order also asked JDRs to make good the damages done by them to the decree property and restore it by erecting fence and gate. The Station house officers of the police station were directed to provide aid to decree holders to prevent the JDRs from violating the decree.

On January 27, the civil court had sentenced the officers, while dealing with an application filed by one Anand Bala, who sought action against officials of the Defence Estate Office for not allowing them access to his six-acre land that is situated close to Army quarters.

In 2017, the court had issued a decree in favour of Anand Bala and others while holding that the land in question is not in any way related to the defence department or cantonment board.

It had issued injunction orders restraining the defence department officials from entering the land belonging to Bala.

However, Bala filed an execution petition before the court after noticing some works being done on his land and sought execution of the court's order and to restrain the defence personnel from causing any hindrance to him from entry to his land