Amaravati: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Friday sentenced three IAS officers to a jail term of one month and also ordered them to pay a fine of Rs 2,000 each holding them guilty of contempt of court. Justice B Devanand passed the order against Special Chief Secretary (Agriculture) Poonam Malakondaiah, the then Special Commissioner of Agriculture H Arun Kumar and the then District Collector of Kurnool G Veerapandian for violating the orders of the court.
The judge had in October 2019 directed the government authorities to consider the candidature of a petitioner for the post of Village Agriculture Assistant (Grade-2) and pass an appropriate order within two weeks. Referring to the submissions made by the respondents in the contempt case, the judge remarked that they “disobeyed the orders passed by this court on October 22, 2019”.
The petitioner filed a contempt case against the officials concerned for having failed to implement the High Court order. The judge pointed out that the three officers had neglected to execute the court orders in a timely manner. He clarified that the authorities could appeal to the court for an extension of time if there is any difficulty in enforcing the court orders and no such attempt has been made in the present case.
