The Orissa High Court has directed an officer of state’s Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Department to pay Rs 1 lakh as penalty to a petitioner for inordinate delay in obeying court order stating that “it exhibits scant respect for the orders of the Constitutional Court, if no respect at all”.
The Division Bench of Justice Krishna Shripad Dixit and Justice Chittaranjan Dash, in an order, stated that “this is a case of criminal brooking of delay by the contemnor (Manoj Kumar Pattnaik, Under Secretary-cum-Deputy Secretary (In-Charge) to Government, Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Department).
A Coordinate Bench of this Court had earlier on 18 December 2024 had asked the Deputy Secretary, Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Department, Government of Odisha to communicate it with the petitioner Debasish Nayak within two weeks of taking the decision.
The Deputy Secretary had however taken the decision belatedly on 19 February 2026 and a copy thereof is served on the Complainant on 23 February 2026.
“The conduct of the Contemnor is contumacious to say the least. It exhibits scant respect for the orders of the Constitutional Court, if no respect at all. That cannot go unscathed at our hands. Such an attitude has to be curbed by iron hands, making the Contemnor to pay heavily from his pocket”, the Division Bench noted in the order.
In the above circumstances, although the contempt proceedings are dropped, the Contemnor shall pay a sum of Rs one lakh to the complainant from his pocket for the criminal delay brooked in the matter within four weeks, failing which additional sum of Rs.500 shall be payable per day’s delay for the first month and Rs 1000 for the days next following, the judgment concluded.