Highest officer liable for contempt for non-compliance with court order: Allahabad HC

The Allahabad High Court has ruled that the highest officer in a government department is liable for contempt proceedings if a writ court order is not complied with due to confusion in the administrative machinery.

Maintaining that the Uttar Pradesh chief secretary will be liable for contempt in cases relating to the Land Acquisition Act, 1984, as well as the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, the court said distribution of work between different departments cannot be used as a pretext for not implementing a court order.

It is the duty of the state government to ensure full compliance with the order passed by this court, Justice Salil Kumar Rai said.

“In case of any non-compliance because of any confusion in the administrative machinery regarding the department or officer responsible for ensuring compliance, the highest officer of the state will be responsible and liable for contempt,” Justice Rai said.

In the present contempt case, petitioner Vinay Kumar Singh's land was acquired by the state government in 1977. Accordingly, the compensation award was passed in 1982 and 1984.

However, no compensation was paid, and the petitioner claimed to be in possession of the land.

After the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act came into force in 2013, the compensation was deposited in the government treasury, but the petitioner refused to accept the same.

Relying on the decision of the apex court in the case of ‘Pune Municipal Corporation and another vs Harakchand Misirimal Solanki and others’, the petitioner contended that since the acquisition proceedings had lapsed in terms of Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act, the petitioner had represented before the authority to release the plots to him, but no action was taken.

Accordingly, the petitioner filed a writ petition, and the writ court held the acquisition proceedings to have lapsed since the deposit made was not proper.

Since the plots were not reverted back to the petitioner despite the order of the writ court, he filed a contempt application, wherein time was granted to the officers to comply.

However, when no compliance was made, the petitioner filed a second contempt application.

The land was initially acquired by the irrigation department but was later transferred to the department of urban development.

Accordingly, the principal secretary of the department was impleaded in the contempt application.

Holding that the state authorities had willfully disobeyed the court order, Justice Rai said, “Evidently, non-compliance of the order passed by this court by the opposite parties was not bona fide. The non-compliance was intentional, conscious, calculated and a deliberate act with full knowledge of the consequences.”

Noting that the chief secretary is the highest authority in the state in matters of land acquisition, the court gave him one month’s further time to comply with the order of the writ court or be present before the high court on the next date of hearing on January 5, 2026.