The Tamil Nadu government has instructed all its departments and administrative bodies to strictly comply with court orders within the stipulated timeframe and to establish a structured mechanism for monitoring and enforcing judicial directives.
The State government, in its guidelines for compliance with court orders and prevention of contempt petitions, also instructed them to take prompt legal recourse by filing an appeal and obtaining a stay, rather than allowing non-compliance to result in contempt petitions, in cases compliance was not feasible.
The communication issued a few weeks ago to all the departments, followed a request from an Additional Advocate-General, who flagged “serious concern repeatedly expressed” by the judges of the Madras High Court over the increasing number of contempt petitions arising from persistent non-compliance with judicial orders.
The State government also advised its departments for establishing internal system for tracking court cases and coordinating with legal counsels and government advocates. It also directed them to fix accountability on officials responsible for delays or non-compliance resulting in legal or financial loss.
The State government’s communication to all its departments issued in March this year followed a similar instruction issued in January this year that referred to the Supreme Court judgment delivered in November 2024 that took a serious view of the practice of filing appeals after inordinate delay and consequently imposing costs on the petitioners.
The Supreme Court in its judgment in the State of Madhya Pradesh Vs. Ramkumar Choudhary case, observed: “We cannot simply brush aside the delay occurred in preferring the second appeal, due to callous and lackadaisical attitude on the part of the officials functioning in the State machinery.”
Though the government adopted systematic approach in handling the legal issues within the time, “due to the fault on the part of the officials in merely communicating the information on time, huge revenue loss will be caused to the government exchequer,” the apex court had said.
The Supreme Court bench consisting of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan not only directed the Madhya Pradesh government to streamline the machinery touching the legal issues, filing of cases before the tribunal/courts, etc., fix the responsibility on the officer/s concerned and penalize them, but said: “Such direction will have to be followed by all the States scrupulously.”
Published – May 25, 2025 03:31 pm IST
