HC contempt notice to CP, DCP

The Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court has issued notices to Nagpur police commissioner Ankush Dhanvijay and DCP (traffic) Sahebrao Patil under Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, for not complying with its orders. Justice RK Deshpande also directed the respondents to appear before the court.


Petitioner Tushar Mandlekar had demanded, under the RTI Act, statistics regarding temporary licenses or acknowledgements issued to commuters after their original ones were detained. DCP traffic replied that in all 3,44,875 driving licences were detained from January 2007 to July 2008. Since they don't have powers to issue licenses, they declined to provide information on the other part of the query.


Mandlekar then approached the state information commissioner, who ruled that under section 206 of MV Act 1988 and Rule 14 (2) of CMV Rules 1989 it is mandatory for the traffic police to give temporary licences to offenders after their original is detained, and hence requisite information should be supplied to the applicant.


Since no response came from DCP traffic, he moved HC which imposed Rs 2,000 fine on him with directions to comply with information commissioner's order within 15 days. Still failing to get the required information, Mandlekar filed a contempt plea praying for punishment to top cops for their deliberate and willful breach of the orders.