Govt high officials’ routine disregard for court orders

The High Court's anger at government high officials for not complying with its orders, as well as its decision to refuse to hear a contempt of court petition against a secretary, are well-justified. A High Court bench on Sunday said they were "fed up" with the fact that many of the court's orders remained unimplemented, despite the court passing them for the welfare of the country. The bench further stated that government high officials do not pay heed to the court's orders and, ultimately, without their proper implementation, these orders will end up in the trash bin. The High Court bench also rightly observed that government officials display a degree of annoyance if they are summoned to appear before the court in connection with contempt of court petitions, despite being bound as per the constitution to comply with the court's orders – something that another High Court bench had previously observed.

The High Court bench made the remarks after the placing of a contempt of court petition against the secretary of environment, forest and climate change. In 2019, 23 individuals submitted an application to the environment ministry secretary to reinstate them to their jobs at a ministry project. As the secretary did not respond to their application, the Apex court in 2019 directed the secretary to dispose of the application within a month, following a writ petition. As the application was still not disposed of, despite the court ruling, a contempt of court petition was filed with the HC last year.

This is the second time this month that the Hight Court has expressed its frustration with officials at the environment ministry. On February 5, a High Court bench rebuked and expressed severe annoyance at the Department of Environment under the environment ministry for failing to take any effective steps to curb air pollution in Dhaka, despite repeated directives. And it observed that citizens were literally being "killed" by such inaction.

However, it is not just the environment ministry that is at fault here. Over the years, we have seen a tendency developing among government authorities to disobey orders of the Supreme Court, as no punishment was handed down for non-compliance with its orders.

The government and other authorities are bound to implement every directive of the Supreme Court, as it is binding on all, according to Article 111 of the Constitution. Article 112 of the Constitution also says that, "All authorities, executive and judicial, in the Republic shall act in aid of the Supreme Court."

A clear message should be sent to all government officials – particularly of the executive branch – that they are not above the law, as they seem to think. This idea that public servants are a "different class of people", as argued by the Attorney General back in November 2022, must be shunned for any substantive change to occur. Such display of clear disobedience to court orders needs to be followed up with severe punishments. The court could, perhaps, suo motu ask the relevant authorities to submit a report of how many court directives in total have been disregarded over the years, and go for harsher measures.