Justice N. Sathish Kumar of the Madras High Court on Tuesday came down heavily on the Registration Department Secretary for issuing a Government Order (GO) on December 3 appointing a Special Officer to manage the affairs of the Kennel Club of India (KCI) despite a specific restraint order passed by the court on December 1.
The judge said it was a clear case of contempt of court by Beela Rajesh, Registration department secretary, as well as K.K. Manjula, District Registrar (Chennai Central). “What do they think of themselves? Are they above law? Do they think they can circumvent court orders? That appears to be the intention here,” he told Additional Advocate General P.H. Arvindh Pandian.
Though the judge was close to initiating contempt proceedings, at the instance of KCI counsel R. Srinivas, he desisted from doing so after recording AAG’s submission that he would make sure that the officials either withdraw the GO or keep it abeyance besides filing an affidavit in court tendering unconditional apology for the “mistake due to miscommunication.”
The AAG told the court that the officials did not intend to disobey the court orders and that they desisted from giving effect to the GO, appointing a Special Officer, on coming to know about the court’s restraint order.
After moving an application to detain Dr. Rajesh as well as Ms. Manjula in civil prison for three months, Mr. Srinivas told the court that KCI, represented by its secretary-cum-treasurer C.V. Sudarshan, had filed a civil suit challenging a show cause notice issued by the secretary seeking explanation as to why a Special Officer should not be appointed.
The notice, issued on October 29, had accused some of the office-bearers of having misappropriated the funds of the club. When it was challenged, the court had, on December 1, sought the reply of the Registration Secretary and other officials to the suit and restrained them from initiating further proceedings, based on the show cause notice, till December 22.
“The court order was communicated to the Secretary as well as the District Registrar within two hours on December 1 and an acknowledgement was also obtained. Despite that, they passed a Government Order on December 3 appointing a Special Officer. Their subordinate officials even came to my office and attempted to take possession,” the counsel complained.
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