Court dismisses contempt plea against Chandigarh IPS officer

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, August 29

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has dismissed with Rs 1 lakh costs a contempt petition filed by the son of a renowned practitioner in ayurvedic medicines.

Justice Arvind Singh Sangwan, among other things, asserted it was apparent that petitioner Beerinder Singh Yogi admittedly was not holding any qualification in the Ayurvedic or Unani system of medicines, but was pre-fixing “Dr” in his name.

He adopted a ploy to harass not only the officials of the National Commission for Indian System of

Medicine, Ministry of Ayush, Government of India, and the Board of Ayurvedic and Unani System of

Medicine, but also filed a false complaint against them.

The petitioner had moved the High Court against IPS officer Manisha Chaudhary alleging violation of the judgment dated November 12, 2013, passed by the Supreme Court of India in “Lalita Kumari versus the Govt. of U.P. and others”.

Justice Sangwan asserted the petitioner’s case was that on November 3, 2022, his brother, along with some persons, came to his clinic and misbehaved. Despite a complaint to the police authorities, action was not taken. The contempt petition was filed alleging that the respondents-police authorities, as well as the Magistrate concerned, had committed violation of the order since a cognisable offence was made out.

After hearing counsel for the parties, Justice Sangwan asserted wilful disobedience of the judgment was not made out. The allegations against the UT Chief Judicial Magistrate were baseless as he had not committed violation of any direction in Lalita Kumari’s case. He passed a judicial order for which the petitioner had a remedy to file the appeal/revision before the Court of Sessions.

Justice Sangwan asserted the complaint given by the petitioner to the Sector 17 police station SHO was on the face of it nothing but an attempt to overreach the process of law as the officials, who visited his premises “were members of ethics, registrar board of Ayurvedic and Unani system of medicine and other members of the commission”

“It is very surprising that the petitioner despite having knowledge that all the persons who visited the premises were in fact government servants and were carrying their identity cards with them as reflected in the order of the Chief Judicial Magistrate as well as the photographs, the petitioner– who preempted that the criminal prosecution will be launched against him for faking himself to be an Ayurvedic doctor and sexologist of national level – adopted a unique method of first filing a complaint against the officials before the police authorities and then by way of filing a complaint under Section 156(3) CrPC before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Chandigarh, which was treated as a complaint,” Justice Sangwan added.