Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh High Court
on Friday sentenced two senior IAS officers to 15 days
imprisonment and also imposed a fine of Rs 2,000 each in a
contempt of court case.
A division bench of the High Court comprising Justices
Goda Raghuram and Ramesh Ranganathan delivered the verdict
today but kept the sentence suspended for a month to enable
the officers file an appeal.
While Nalgonda district Collector has been found not
guilty of contempt of court, a municipal official who
previously worked as Nalgonda Commissioner was also sentenced
to 15 days in jail.
The High Court found Principal Secretary-rank officer
Pushpa Subrahmanyam (1985 batch), Commissioner and Director of
Municipal Administration Premchand (1984 batch) and the then
Municipal Commissioner of Nalgonda Venkateswarlu guilty of
contempt of court in a case related to extension of lease to a
cinema theatre in Nalgonda town.
Though Nalgonda district Collector Syed Ali Murtaza Rizvi
was also a respondent in the case, the court found him not
guilty of contempt.
The division bench of the High Court concluded the
hearing into the contempt case, filed by Nalgonda municipal
councillor B Krishna Reddy, last week and reserved the
judgement for today.
The High Court had passed an order in August 2009, based
on the original petition of Krishna Reddy, that the municipal
authorities had no right to extend lease of land for cinema
hall without conducting a public auction.
However, the Municipal Administration Department issued a
"special" order `staying` the High Court order, allegedly at
the behest of a state minister hailing from Nalgonda district.
Following this, a contempt petition was filed in the High
Court. Pushpa Subrahmanyam told the court that she owned up
responsibility for the order.
The bench expressed its dissatisfaction over the way the
officials had conducted themselves in the case. "Imagine if
there were no courts in the country. One billion people would
revolt and throw both the legislature and the executive into
the Bay of Bengal," the bench had observed.
PTI
