Stopping short of passing strictures, the Bombay High Court has reprimanded the Maharashtra Home Secretary for not deciding an appeal on a date fixed by the court and not conducting himself "fairly and impartially".
Taking a severe note of Home Secretary (Special) Vineet Agarwal's conduct, a bench of justices S C Dharmadhikari and G S Patel set aside and quashed an externment order passed on July 5 against Sangli district resident Vinayak Mainkar.
The judges were angry to learn that Mainkar and his lawyer N N Gawankar were made to wait endlessly in Agarwal's office to hear their appeal against the externment order. When their turn came after a few hours, the lawyer was asked not to keep the files on the table and he had to hold them in his lap, the bench noted.
"The officer was required to decide the appeal on August 27 itself as directed by the court and not to exercise his liberty to postpone it to some other date (September 21). Equally appalling is his treatment to petitioner's advocate appearing before him," the bench said.
"He (Agarwal) was expected to put aside any feelings of bitterness and to conduct himself fairly, impartially and without rancour. He did not. This is not how appellate proceedings in any matter, and most especially in matters affecting personal liberty and constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, are to be handled," it remarked.
In his appeal, Mainkar argued that he was never served with the two show cause notices. "This is fatal in itself. Worse yet, the externment order refers to two in-camera witness statements. Neither show cause notice mentions these," the judges noted.
"The externment authority refers to so-called written statements of some other dates. These, the petitioner says, are not his. The authorities seem to have picked up someone else's statements," they said.
