IAS officer Pushpa in the line of HC fire

HYDERABAD: Warning that it would soon decide the quantum of punishment to be awarded to senior IAS officer Pushpa Subrahmanyam and other bureaucrats who had allowed a minister to stay a court order, the AP High Court on Friday reserved its judgment in a contempt case that charged these officials with acting against the court's direction in a property case.
The division bench comprising Justice Goda Raghuram and Justice Ramesh Ranganathan while concluding its hearing in a contempt case filed by a councillor, B Krishna Reddy of Nalgonda municipality, summoned Pushpa Subrahmanyam, former principal secretary of municipal administration, and others and questioned them.
Krishna Reddy, in his petition, had opposed the extension of lease with regard to 3750 sq yards of land in Nalgonda. The land, which houses a theatre, was taken on lease on a nominal amount of Rs 300 per month by the municipal chairman's family 28 years ago. When the lease was sought to be extended for a further period of 25 years in 2008, local councillor Krishna Reddy challenged it in the high court.
Though the HC held in August 2009 that the municipal authorities had no right to extend the lease without a public auction, the authorities tried to give it to the old leaseholder. When a contempt was moved in the HC, the authorities were summoned.
During the course of hearing, it came to light that the move was at the behest of local minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy who went to the extent of staying an interim order of the court through a special order passed by the state government.
When the bench questioned Pushpa Subrahmanyam on Friday as to why she had signed on such a patently illegal order, she initially said she was on leave on the date of the order, that a joint secretary had signed it and she ratified it later. However, she later said that she was owning up the responsibility.
The bench expressed its dissatisfaction over the way the officials had conducted themselves in the case. "Imagine if there were no courts in the country. One billion people would revolt and throw both the legislature and the executive into the Bay of Bengal," the bench said and reserved its order.