CAT-Nainital issues contempt notice to Environment Ministry secretary

The Nainital bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has issued a contempt notice to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Secretary Leena Nandan on the issue of the deputation of Uttarakhand cadre IFS officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi into Institution of Lokpal.
The notice was issued in response to the officer’s contempt petition, in which he alleged willful disobedience of the Tribunal’s order of September 1 last year.A division bench of Justice Om Prakash and Administrative Member, Mohan Pyare reserved the judgement on February 20 while hearing the petition, which was later pronounced on Wednesday. “From a perusal of the judgement of September 1, 2022, it is evident that this Tribunal had directed the respondent to decide the representation of the applicant, but the respondent has not passed any order whereas the order of October 3, 2022, has been passed by the Director (IFS), Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change,” it said.
The tribunal further directed Leena Nandan to file a ‘compliance report within a period of four weeks’ and directed the matter to be listed on March 23.
In this matter, Sanjiv Chaturvedi had applied for deputation as Lokpal in the Central Government in 2019, which the Government of Uttarakhand forwarded with its No Objection Certificate (NOC) and recommendation on December 23, 2019, to
Nandan.
However, no decision was taken on the matter and the officer filed a petition before CAT in February 2020, for issuing directions to the Secretary. In September 2022, the Tribunal gave Nandan eight weeks to either take a decision in the matter or forward the case of the officer to Lokpal if they were of the view that the decision in the matter lay with the office of Lokpal. However, on October 3 last year, instead of Secretary, Director (IFS) passed the order returning the case of the officer even after noting that, ‘as per section 10(iii) of the Lokpal and Lokayukta Act, the appointment of officers and other staff shall be made by the Chairperson, Lokpal.’