Deepali Kalia
Andhra Pradesh High Court initiated suo moto contempt proceedings against the Additional Director General of Police(CID), DGP Office, Guntur ,Station House Officer, CID Police Station, Mangalgiri, Guntur District and Superintendent of Government Hospital, Guntur for not complying with the orders passed by it regarding the medical examination of the arrested MP.
A division bench comprising of Justices Lalitha Kannengati and C Praveen Kumar initiated the contempt action because of noncompliance of its order passed on May 16 directing to get the medical examination of the MP done by Ramesh Hospital, Guntur as directed by the Magistrate in the earlier order passed on May 15.
Krishnam Raju was arrested for alleged sedition and for promoting communal hatred through his speeches. Senior Advocate B Adinarayana Rao had sent a letter petition alleging that the MP was being subjected to torture in the police custody and hence, the High Court on May 15 acting upon the petition had passed an order of constitution of a medical board for examination of Raju.
However, on May 16 the High Court had clarified that its previous order won’t supersede the Magistrate’s order and that the magistrate’s order should be upheld and implemented.
Additional Advocate General P Sudhakar Reddy had cited three main reasons as to why the order was not complied with;
- He called the order an “illegal” and “ fraud “ order
- He stated that the jail doors cannot be opened at 11 pm
- And lastly , he said that the accused has moved to the supreme court
The High court in response stated that “None of these reasons prima facie convince this court for non-implementation of the order. Admittedly, the order of the Magistrate dated 15.05.2021 or the order of this court dated 16.05.2021 are not set aside or modified so far. The Respondents cannot sit in appeal on the orders passed by this court and decide it is an illegal order. When an order is passed by this court and as long as that order is not set aside, the respondents have no alternative but to implement the same”.
“The court directed the Respondents to “forthwith” implement the order of Magistrate. The Respondents should have understood the meaning of the word “forthwith”. Even assuming for argument sake, the order was communicated at 11.00 P.M. and that they could not implement the same, they had time till the orders were passed by the Hon’ble Apex Court in the afternoon.”
The Court also commented on the conduct of Additional Advocate General and stated that it was prima facie contemptuous because of the “brazenness and arrogance” he had displayed while making his arguments.
Court said that his behavior called for initiation of contempt proceedings against him and a referral of the matter to the Bar Council for disciplinary action but the court would not do so “However, if this behavior is repeated, this court will not hesitate to take the required action”, the High Court warned the Additional Advocate General.