Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday discharged senior HaryanaIAS, Dr AshokKhemka from the contempt of court case, wherein the HC had issued him show cause notice for referring the name of high court judge before media in one of his interviews.
Justice R K Jain of the HC ordered to discharged Khemka from the contempt notice after recording the details of an affidavit submitted by Khemka before the court on Wednesday.
While issuing suo motu notice to Khemka on November 26, 2013, Justice Ranjit Singh of the HC had observed "the officer had referred to this court by name, while appearing before media, Let notice be issued to the officer as to why and in what authority he had referred to this court by name, while making reference to the order passed and whether it would lead to violation of any norms or would be of the nature of contempt".
When the matter came up for hearing on Wednesday, Khemka filed an affidavit before Justice R K Jain stating that he has never made any adverse or critical reference to the Judiciary or to any individual HC Judge, whether by name or otherwise.
"To the best of my knowledge, an appreciative reference to the HC Judge was made by me sometime towards the close of October, 2012 in response to queries put to me when accosted by a large body of media persons as I was coming out of the Haryana Civil Secretariat after meeting the chief secretary Haryana," Khemka submitted.
In his detailed reply, Khemka also stated that he was not aware as to whether there is any legal or judicial embargo on referring to Judges by name in the public domain. However, media reports of judicial hearings regularly refer to Judges of the Supreme Court and the high courts by name.
"Even critical references to the Judiciary both generally as well as by name have not unoften been made in the media, print as well as electronic, as also in articles, books, seminars, etc," he further added in his affidavit.
Importantly, senior Haryana IAS Ashok Khemka had came into limelight in October 2012 following his abrupt transfer from the department of consolidation and land holding after he cancelled the mutation of Robert Vadra-DLF deal. Whistle blower officer was transferred again by the Haryana government after he recommended a criminal case against the German manufacturing company for making false claims to sell fungicide amounting Rs 60 crore to seed producers of Haryana.
