Bhubaneswar: The Orissa High Court has issued a contempt notice to retired DGP Y B Khurania for his alleged “deliberate disobedience” in honouring an order and submitting a misleading affidavit regarding the reinstatement of a police sub-inspector (SI).
Issuing the notice a week after Khurania retired from service, Justice Sanjay Kumar Mishra said though the matter is now pending in the Supreme Court, it cannot be a ground to stall contempt proceedings. The high court, in its August 24 order, directed Khurania, who retired as the DGP August 16, to file his response to the notice within seven days.
The high court also directed the current in-charge DGP to complete SI Sagarika Parida’s reinstatement within four weeks. Parida who joined as an SI in 2017 was discharged from the service three years later for allegedly concealing criminal antecedents in her verification roll. The SI claimed that she had been acquitted in one case before her recruitment, and informed the authorities about the two pending ones.
She moved the Orissa HC after failing to get back her job. Khurania was the DGP at that time. September 25 last year, a single-judge bench ruled in Parida’s favour and ordered her immediate reinstatement with full service and financial benefits, treating her discharge period as “on duty”. The DGP appealed against it before a division bench which upheld the single-judge bench’s order. The state government filed a Special Leave Petition before the SC August 22 against the order.
Justice Mishra in the order said, “Law is well settled that pendency of the proceeding before the Supreme Court, in the absence of any interim order of stay, cannot be a ground to stall a contempt proceeding”.
The court also dismissed the state’s arguments that proceedings should be dropped due to Khurania’s retirement, observing that he had misled the bench by previously seeking time under the guise of department processing rather than disclosing plans to appeal.