Jaipur: The Supreme Court Monday dismissed a contempt petition against Rajasthan chief secretary V Srinivas over alleged non-implementation of its earlier ruling protecting the tenure of serving Presidents and Members of Consumer Commissions, but allowed the petitioners to approach the Rajasthan High Court for relief.A bench of Justice M M Sundresh and Justice N Kotiswar Singh refused to initiate contempt proceedings on a plea filed by eight serving officers of District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions in Rajasthan, including Jayshree Sharma and others.
The petitioners alleged wilful disobedience of the Supreme Court’s judgment directing that serving Presidents and Members of Consumer Commissions could continue until completion of their tenure or until fresh recruitment was carried out under new rules to be notified by the Central govt.They said that despite repeated representations and the binding nature of the judgment under Articles 141 and 144 of the Constitution, recruitment rules had not been notified and uniform continuation of serving members was not ensured. “This led to functional disruption in District Consumer Commissions across the State,” argued Advocate-on-Record Shubham Jain for the petitioners.Additional Advocate General Shiv Mangal Sharma appeared for the State of Rajasthan. After hearing both sides, the bench dismissed the contempt petition and said the applicants were free to move the jurisdictional high court if they had surviving or individual grievances on service continuation or implementation of the earlier directions.
