AG committed contempt of court by not appearing before us: HC

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court today said Uttar Pradesh Advocate General (AG) Raghvendra Singh had committed contempt of court by not appearing before it, on the pretext of being busy at a meeting throughout the day, despite repeated calls to him.

Restraining itself from issuing notice to the AG, the court directed the chief secretary to place the entire matter before Chief Minister Yogi Adityanth.

The bench also summoned the chief secretary with an action-taken report on August 3.

A bench of justices Ramesh Sinha and Rekha Dixit said, "The attitude and conduct of the AG in not appearing before the court amounts to contempt of the court, in spite of repeated calls to him through additional government advocates Smiriti Sahai and RK Dwivedi.
 

"Looking at such a demeanour and gesture of the AG, we desired to call upon him by issuing notice to him for his contemptuous conduct and disrespect shown to the court, but restrain ourselves from doing so and think it more appropriate to refer the matter to the chief minister."

The court was hearing a writ petition filed by one Vindeshwari Prasad.

The court had come across many instances, in which the investigating agencies of the state "were not conducting a free-and-fair probe", compelling the victims to approach it.

"These matters are serious in nature and concern the public, who are victims of heinous crimes and who do not get justice from the state agencies and thus, rush up to the court being aggrieved of their (agencies') inaction, sometimes due to political influence and sometimes due to their callousness and lethargic conduct," it observed.

Annoyed with the conduct of the AG, the court said seeing the "sorry state of affairs" in the state, it had summoned him before it, but he did not respond to the request, which amounted to "utter disregard and disrespect" to the court.

It added that it had set a bad example for the state counsel as well as members of the Bar, who were present in the court, as also before the whole legal fraternity.

Under the circumstances, it further said, "The court is compelled to direct the chief secretary to appear in person before it on August 3 and file his personal affidavit, explaining the stand of the state and steps being taken by him in the matters referred above.