Ranchi: Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday pulled up the state for not adhering to its direction to reply on a case pertaining to Schedule Area Regulation Act while imposing a fine on the government.
Slapping a penalty of Rs 10,000 on the government, the division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Tatia and Justice Jaya Roy observed that remaining silent and not filing reply by the state government was tantamount to contempt of court.
The observation by the bench came in the wake of the state government failing to file a reply on a court’s direction in 2010 following three PIL by three persons - M A Ahmed, Upendra Mahato and K J Yadav - which were clubbed together by the court.
According to their writ, some areas were allegedly marked as scheduled even in areas where tribal population was less than 50 percent and urged to denotify those schedule areas with no tribal population.
The court directed the government to file reply by July 24 and set July 26 as the next date for hearing.
PTI
