New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday admonished a senior official of the Uttar Pradesh government for filing 'false' affidavits in the court saying it will not tolerate an IAS officer "lying" on face of the court and changing stands according to convenience.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih pulled up Rajesh Kumar Singh, principal secretary of Uttar Pradesh Prison Administration Department, for filling the false affidavit after Additional Advocate General Garima Prasad, appearing for the state government, said that he did not understand the earlier order of the court.
"We will not tolerate an IAS officer lying to this court and changing the stands as per the convenience," the bench told Prasad.
It noted that the stand taken on oath in the affidavit affirmed on August 14 by Singh, is completely different from the solemn statements made by the same officer which were recorded in this court's order of August 12.
"In fact, some of the statements made in the affidavit including the statement made in clause (g) of paragraph 5 of the affidavit appear to be false," the bench observed. Singh on August 12 submitted that it was Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister's office which delayed the processing of file related to remission of a convict due to the Model Code of Conduct imposed in the state on account of recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.
Asking the state government to take action against the officer, the bench said, "Some officers must go to jail, otherwise this conduct will not stop. We are not going to spare him or the state must take action against him." Singh said that he inadvertently said that the Chief Minister's secretariat did not accept the files related to remission due to the Model Code of Conduct.
The bench told Singh that it does not believe his submission as "You are not an illiterate person that you could not understand what the court said. You are a senior officer of the state government." The bench took the affidavit of Singh on record and said the court will go deep into the matter and pass an order on September 9.