Supreme Court Stays the Order of Calcutta High Court Suspending Chief Secretary Keshav Chandra

Details

New Delhi, Aug 4: The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice and stayed the order of the Calcutta High Court which had suspended Keshav Chandra, Chief Secretary of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Administration and imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh in an order passed on August 3. The Calcutta High Court had fined Admiral D K Joshi, the Lieutenant Governor, Rs 5 lakh to be paid from his own funds for not implementing directions.

A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took note of the submissions of Attorney General R Venkataramani, appearing for the chief secretary and the LG, and stayed the order of the Port Blair bench of the high court.

At this, the CJI said, "You must have done something drastic to get that order."

 “We will stay these directions. You (the petitioners) must have gotten the judges really riled up to get this... We are keeping it on next Friday,” the bench said.

The matter pertains to paying enhanced wages to over 4800 daily wage employees of the local PWD and other departments with retrospective effect from September 2017. In 2022, the Calcutta High Court upheld these demands and said that the workers were entitled to 1/30th of the pay at the minimum of the relevant pay scale plus dearness allowance for work of eight hours a day as specified by the Union government.

Rattled by non-compliance of the earlier orders, the order stated, "The deponent of the affidavit had the audacity to challenge and reopen the issues decided before the single bench and confirmed by the division bench, without challenging the same before a higher forum. This conduct is ex facie contumacious and has reduced the contempt jurisdiction of a division bench of this court under Article 215 of the constitution of India to a mockery."

"This court clearly finds flagrant and reprehensible contempt on the part of the contemnors Admiral D.K. Joshi, lieutenant governor, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Shri Keshav Chandra, chief secretary, Andaman and Nicobar administration,” the court said.