Uttarakhand High Court notice to Maharashtra Governor on Contempt plea

On Tuesday, the High Court of Uttarakhand sought Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s response on a petition for starting contempt proceeding against him for his failure to follow a Court order to pay market rent for a Govt bungalow allocated to him as an Ex-Chief Minister.

Justice Sharad Kumar issued notice to Koshyari through his Lawyer after hearing arguments of the petitioner’s Lawyer on maintainability of the contempt plea.

The petition, filed by Dehradun-based NGO Rural Litigation & Entitlement Kendra (RLEK), accuses Koshyari of committing “willful non-compliance” of the Court’s May 3, 2019 order which had asked him to pay market rent of the bungalow occupied by him as Ex-CM within 6 months of the direction. Koshyari has till date not paid the market rent to the Govt as calculated against him, the petition said.

In May 2019, the Court had directed 4 Ex CM's – Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank, BC Khanduri, Vijay Bahuguna and Bhagat Singh Koshyari – to pay the market rate for the services they availed after demitting the office of the CM. While the Supreme Court stayed the contempt proceedings against Bahuguna & Khanduri, the proceedings against Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank are still on.

The Court will now hear Koshyari's case along with the contempt case against Nishank. Speaking to the news agency, Kartikey Hari Gupta, the lawyer appearing for RLEK, said that though there were questions about the maintainability of the plea, he has complied with the requirement under Article 361. Article 361 grants immunity to the sitting governors as well as President of India from any Court proceedings against them.

However, constitutional experts say that that immunity is only for criminal cases while, in this case, the notice has been issued under a civil contempt proceeding. Faizan Mustafa, vice-chancellor, NALSAR University of Law, however, said that the development is a rarity & it is difficult to recall an instance when this happened earlier. 

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