Employee serves contempt notice on VC

LUDHIANA: It is over two months since the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the order of the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) vice-chancellor, terminating the services of Sarabjit Kaur Dhaliwal.
Interestingly, the employee has neither been allowed to join duty nor paid emoluments of nearly two-and-a-half years to which she is entitled as per the court’s verdict.
Dhaliwal has now served a contempt notice on the PAUs vice-chancellor K S Aulakh, and registrar V K Sharma, asking them to implement the court’s decision within 15 days or else she will file a contempt petition against them in the high court.
Dr Aulakh says the university has three months period to put up a plea in the higher court. Dhaliwal’s services had been terminated on June 12, 2001 by the present vice chancellor on the plea that she did not possess the minimum academic qualifications prescribed for the post she had worked on for nearly three years.
A division bench of the high court, comprising Justice S S Saron and Justice V M Jain, set aside the termination order on August 14 this year, saying that a regular employee as Dhaliwal could not be sacked just after issuing a show cause notice and without holding an inquiry.
The order read, ‘‘Dhaliwal shall be entitled to continue in service with all consequential benefits.’’
In the contempt notice issued to the VC and the registrar this week, Dhaliwal has alleged that the head of the economics department and the registrar did not allow her to join the duty, even as she approached them several times with a copy of the court order.
Later, she send written requests to the VC to issue necessary orders for allotment of teaching/research work to her and for payment of arrears of emoluments wef June 2001. She, however, said ‘all her earnest pleas had fallen on deaf ears.’
Dhaliwal has also cautioned the VC and the registrar, who were both the respondents in her original petition, that by not implementing the judgment of the court intentionally and wilfully, they have committed contempt of court.