SC stays order against scientists in contempt case

The Supreme Court today stayed the order of the Madras High Court sentencing former DRDO chief V K Saraswat and another senior scientist to three weeks' simple imprisonment for committing contempt of court by disobeying its April 2009 order related to re-employment of a clerk in a school run by a wing of the organisation.
A bench comprising justices S J Mukhopadhaya and P C Pant put on hold the High Court's order after Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi made submissions on behalf of Saraswat and G Malakondaiah, Director of Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory, who were also directed to pay a fine of Rs 2,000 each personally.

The High Court had passed the order on the petition by S Joseph Raj, who was an employee of the school run by Combat Vehicles Research & Development Establishment (CVRDE) at suburban Avadi here.
It had directed the government to take appropriate departmental action against them for the "reckless, negligence and willful disobedience of the order of the Court".
The High Court had held Saraswat, a Padmabhushan awardee and former Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister and Director General of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), guilty of Civil Contempt.
When CVRDE closed the school, Raj and other employees had approached the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) challenging it.

The High Court had noted that even after several rounds of litigations before CAT and the High Court and Supreme Court, he was made to suffer.

On April 30, 2009, the High Court directed the two officials to appoint Raj as Senior Technical Assistant (Library Science) within a period of two months.
However, the officials on April 13, 2012, passed an order stating that Raj was not eligible to be considered as Senior Technical Assistant (Library Science) and that he was not a government servant, prompting him to file the present contempt petition.
The High Court had said that even during the contempt proceedings, there was no tinge of remorse or an attempt to correct the mistake by the two officials.