HC issues Notice to Top Bureaucrat on a Contempt plea for helping Ex. Minister

On Thursday, the High Court of Uttarakhand issued a show-cause notice to Additional Secretary Deependra Chaudhary in a civil contempt plea filed in the case relating to non-payment of dues incurred in housing, water, electricity & other facilities by Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank after he vacated the office of state CM.

In reply to the civil contempt petition, Pokhriyal, who is also the Ex-CM of Uttarakhand had filed an affidavit in HC saying that he had deposited Rs 10,77,709, the amount he was asked to pay for the services he used after leaving the office of Chief Minister of the state.

To this, the lawyer for the petitioner objected & said that the HC had already issued on order asking Pokhriyal to deposit 41.64 lakhs, which he alleged Chaudhary recalculated later.

The Single-Judge bench of Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma took a hard stand on the matter by issuing a show-cause notice to Additional Secretary Deependra Chaudhary and asked him to reply within one week about why the due were recalculated, as recalculating the amount goes against the order of the HC's division Bench.

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