On Thursday the High court of Andhra Pradesh sentenced 4 service IAS officers and also one retired officer to two different terms of imprisonment and also held them guilty for The contempt of wilful disobedience of the court order which is of February 10, 2017. Chief secretary Aditya Nath Das and the other three IAS officers were also excused from this case and all the charges which were against them were also dismissed.
Shamsher Singh Rawat the secretary of principal finance, Revu Mutyala Raju the additional secretary of chief minister, KVN Chakradhara Babu, SPS Nellore district collector, and MV Seshagiri Babu the former collector are all accused in this case. Previously, Revu Mutyala Raju also worked as a collector of the SPS Nellore district. Well, in addition to this, Manmohan Singh, the retired IAS officer and then principal secretary revenue in 2017 is also convicted in this case.
The order on a contempt petition was also pronounced by Justice Battu Devanand, filed by an agriculturist Tallapaka Savitramma of Erragunta in Venkatachalam Mandal of SPS Nellore district, for her land which was taken by the government. For now, principal finance secretary, Shamsher Singh Rawat, and retired IAS officer Manmohan Singh, got sentenced to imprisonment of one month. While on the other hand the rest of the IAS officers are now sentenced to imprisonment for two weeks. In addition to this, a fine of 1000 rupees has been also imposed on each of them.
According to the petitioner’s lawyer, C Vani Reddy, Justice Battu Devanand has ordered the suspension of the sentence for around a month to enable the convicted to go for an appeal. And Tallapaka Savitaramma has also filed a writ petition stating that the revenue authorities have occupied her land which measures up to 3 acres. In addition to this, they also allotted the land to the National Institute of mental health even without any compensation payment for any notice. Then, the district collector handed over 10 acres of land to the National Institute of mental health authorities and this 3-acre land was a part of that 10-acre land which was then handed over to the National Institute of mental health.
The High court was then included in this case and as the high court directed the government to pay the compensation fees to the petitioner the order was not completed by the government and thus Tallapaka Savithramma filed the contempt petition in 2018. Manmohan Singh Anil Chandra Punetha the then chief commissioner of land administration, that is, the CCLA, the RDOs, the tahsildar, and several officers were also made as respondents.
Later the High court ordered all the respondents to file their counters and as a result, the case came for hearing even before Justice B Devanand. After all the steps, finally, the compensation fees were also paid to Savithramma on March 3 this year. Justice Battu Devanand stated that this compensation was completely paid to the petitioner finally after 4 years after the contempt petition was then made. So as a result the high court felt that it was a case that deserved punishment for The contempt of the court. The verdict was finally delivered on Thursday.
But the case against other officers like the then CCLA Anil Chandra Punetha and other local tahsildar was dismissed. The case which was against the incumbent Aditya Nath Das the chief secretary who became a part of this case as he held the full additional charge of the principal finance secretary post for some days in February and March this year was also dismissed.
