Medak District Collector sentenced to six months in jail

The Medak District Collector, Rahul Raj, was sentenced to six months of imprisonment by the Telangana High Court for contempt of court. This comes after his failure to implement court orders in a land dispute case, despite multiple court directions

Hyderabad: Justice K Lakshman of the Telangana High Court, dealing with a contempt petition, has sentenced Medak District Collector Rahul Raj to six months of simple imprisonment for failing to implement the Court orders. The Court also imposed a fine of Rs 2,000. However, the sentence of imprisonment was suspended for a period of four weeks from the date of the order.

The Judge strongly criticised the conduct of the Collector for making a woman in her fifties run from pillar to post for land admeasuring 2.22 acres for over two years. The Judge also noted that despite the specific orders of the Court in multiple rounds of litigation, the officer deliberately violated the court order. The dispute pertains to land in Bonal village, Chegunta Mandal, Medak, wherein petitioner Nallavelli Lakshmi claimed 2.22 acres as a successor to the property. Challenging the action of the Collector in not considering her representation and referring the matter to a civil court, she approached the High Court. It was her contention that the Collector failed to follow the procedure established by law in determining her claim as a successor to the property.

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The High Court then directed the officer to follow the procedure, including issuing notices and hearing objections before disposing of the petitioner’s representation. In the present contempt case, the petitioner complained that the authority had passed a subsequent order without issuing any notice or affording an opportunity of hearing, thereby violating the Court order.

The Judge summoned and perused the records and came to the conclusion that the officer had deliberately disobeyed the orders passed by the Court, leading to the imposition of the said punishment.