SUPREME COURT STAYED TELANGANA HIGH COURT’S ORDER SENTENCING NTPC CHIEF TO 2 MONTHS JAIL IN CONTEMPT CASE

The Supreme Court in the case Manikanth v. Regonda Srinivas & Ors, wherein the bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice PS Narasimha, and Justice JB Pardiwala observed and has stayed the judgement of the High Court of Telangana which had sentenced the chairman and managing director of National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) Gurdeep Singh and his Secunderabad-based HR general manager Manikanth to two months in jail in the case of criminal contempt. In the present case, the Telangana High Court had charged Singh and Manikanth with wilful disobedience of court orders and has imposed a penalty of Rs 2,000 each. The Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, Adarsh Tripathi, AOR, Advocate Vikram S. Baid, and Advocate Ajitesh Garg represented the NTPC. However, the bench stated, pending further orders, there will be a stay of the operation of the judgment and order of the Division Bench of the High Court of Telangana. The bench comprising of Justice Shameem Akther and Justice N Tukaram of the Telangana High Court in December 2022 in the case observed and has charged the two officials who were facing allegations of not adhering to the court order on delivering of the justice to those who lost their land to the NTPC unit in Ramagundam 42 years ago. Further, it has been noted by the bench that the apology offered by the two officers was not sincere and that it was offered only to get out of the contempt case. Therefore, the order has been suspended by the bench for six weeks to allow the officials to avail legal remedies to mitigate their sentence. Accordingly, the Apex Court issued notice in the matter and made it returnable on 30 January 2023.