Hyderabad: A two judge panel of Telangana High Court dismissed a contempt case against IAS Smt. Santhi Kumari, Chief Secretary to Government State of Telangana, regarding permanent transfer of services of an additional child development project officer. The panel comprising of Acting Chief Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Namavarapu Rajeshwar Rao dealt with a contempt case filed by Navuri P Revathi Jyotsna, alleging that the respondent authority wantonly failed to comply with the earlier order passed by the panel in a writ plea. Earlier, the petitioner filed a writ plea challenging the rejection of her representation seeking a direction to the state government to take a decision with regard her permanent transfer of services from the State of Andhra Pradesh. The state contended that there were no vacancies in the CDPO category except for direct recruitment, which had already been notified by the TSPSC, and results had been published. However, the petitioner referred to a web note issued by TSPSC, stating that the selection process for the CDPO post under a certain notification was cancelled. After perusing the material on record, the panel directed the respondent authorities to reconsider the representation of the petitioner and pass fresh decision in accordance with law. The panel also directed that the entire exercise be completed within three weeks from the date of submission of representation. In the contempt case, the panel found that the respondent authority had considered the representation of the petitioner and passed appropriate orders. Acting Chief Justice Sujoy Paul speaking for the panel noted that the writ plea was disposed of without any expression on merits. Given this, the panel held that no case of contempt can be made out against the respondent for rejecting the representation of the petitioner, whilst the direction was only with respect to reconsideration of representation. Accordingly, the panel dismissed the contempt case with a liberty to the petitioner to challenge the rejection order in appropriate proceedings.
