The Supreme Court today asked the Odisha government to "put its house in order" after its Chief Secretary, summoned for non-representation of the state in a case relating to posting of rape videos on WhatsApp, said he did not receive the court notice in time.
"This is too much. Put your house in order," a social justice bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit said when senior advocate L Nageswar Rao, appearing for the Odisha official, said the authorities could not receive court's notice on time.
On the last hearing on March 20, the court was irked over the non-response of Odisha government in the case and had directed its Chief Secretary to appear in person.
The court, on March 13, had also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on Odisha after no lawyer appeared on its behalf, saying that "something is wrong with Odisha."
Meanwhile, the court ordered removal of Telangana from the list of parties after Additional Solicitor General N K Kaul, appearing for the new state, said that police was conducting a thorough probe into alleged assault on the car of an NGO office-bearer who had brought the incident of uploading of rape videos on 'WhatsApp' to the notice of the Chief Justice of India.
Earlier, the court had taken suo motu cognizance of posting of the rape videos and ordered a CBI probe into it besides issuing notices to the Centre and others including West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Delhi and Telangana.
Prior to that, the apex court had taken suo motu notice of a letter, written by Hyderabad-based NGO Prajwala, on posting of two rape videos on WhatsApp and had asked CBI to launch a probe forthwith to nab the culprits.
