HC awards 2-month jail to ex-ACS, 3 officers

Indore: The Indore bench of MP high court awarded two months of simple imprisonment to four state health department officials, including the then additional chief secretary, now retired and former health commissioner over delay in regularisation of ward boy in Mandsaur district.Justice Pranay Verma pronounced the order dated Mar 16 that was uploaded on Monday, on nine contempt petitions that were heard together as they arose from identical writ court directions. The sentence was kept in abeyance for three weeks, giving time to the officials— ACS retired Mohd Suleman, former health commissioner and others time to seek relief or achieve full compliance.The matter stemmed from a Dec 6, 2023 order directing that the petitioners, all health department employees, be granted regularisation from the initial date of appointment ranging from years 2004 to 2016, along with all consequential service benefits, within three months.After the deadline passed without compliance, the petitioners filed contempt petitions in 2024 against Suleman, Rathi, former Ujjain division joint director health services Dr DK Tiwari, and chief medical and health officer Mandsaur, Dr Govind Chouhan.When compliance reports were promised and not delivered, costs of Rs 25,000 were imposed. The respondents were directed to appear personally before the court, and a Writ Appeal filed against the original order was dismissed on May 20, 2025.The court noted that the respondents had "resorted to every possible tactic to avoid compliance while repeatedly misleading the court on one pretext or another".On Feb 6, the court issued a final warning, granting four weeks for complete compliance, with a direction that failure to comply by the next date of hearing would automatically result in a finding of contempt, without any further orders.When the matter was taken up on Mar 16, the respondents produced a compliance report stating that a regularisation order had been passed on March 12, 2026, beyond the four-week deadline. The court noted that the writ petition directed regularisation along with all consequential benefits.