By IANS
Lucknow : The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court Tuesday issued a warrant of arrest against a senior Uttar Pradesh official and his immediate suspension for committing contempt of court.
The ruling was given against state Food Commissioner Harbhajan Singh, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 1983 batch.
The court order came in a case of contempt of court for submission of a false affidavit before the high court.
According to state additional advocate general Jaideep Narain Mathur, “Three successive vice chairmen of the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) had sworn affidavits before the court claiming that a particular disputed land in Lucknow’s posh Gomti Nagar had been acquired by the authority. After it was discovered that the affidavit was incorrect as part of that land had not been acquired, the court took issued a contempt notice to the officers seeking their submission.”
He said, “while two of the officers promptly responded, Harbhajan Singh could not as he was away in Chhattisgarh representing the state at a high level meeting of a starvation deaths panel, constituted by the Supreme Court.”
However, taking serious note of Singh’s failure to even submit an application, the bench headed by Justice Tarun Agarwal not only issued a warrant of arrest but also directed the state government to suspend him for his “callous attitude”.
Singh was not available for his comment as he was still on his way back from Raipur.