New Delhi, Aug 29 (PTI) A Delhi court has issued a show cause notice to a retired scientist for "wasting" judicial time and abusing the process of law in a civil case against him by the Council of Scientific
and Industrial Research (CSIR).
District judge Naresh Kumar Laka directed the scientist’s personal presence and issued a show cause asking why a separate complaint should not be filed against him for dishonestly making a false claim in the court.
The court further asked why it shouldn't impose Rs 1 lakh fine for filing some "baseless letters" and order his evaluation under the Mental Healthcare Act.
In an order dated August 27, the court said the defendant V K C Sanghi retired from CSIR-National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS) in 2011 but did not vacate the official residence.
It noted the plaintiff (CSIR) sent a legal notice to him in September 2013, and a suit was filed for recovery of the property in Juy 2017.
"In the judgment dated February 25, 2019, the suit was partly decreed for recovery of possession but despite that the defendant did not hand over the physical vacant possession. Thereafter, the plaintiff filed execution petition and the possession got delivered to the plaintiff and the said execution was disposed of vide order dated December 10, 2021," the court said.
The court said it received a letter by Sanghi, which was also addressed to the Prime Minister, Chief Justice of India, director general of CSIR and others.
"From the perusal of the said letter, it is observed that the he has highlighted to some campaign/propaganda on the issue of population, corruption, etc. In the said letter, defendant has also levelled allegations against his own department (CSIR) for bypassing him as acting director of CSIR, and also made certain allegations for not recognising his essential research on population and corruption."
The court said the letter was written in an inconsistent manner without any relevance to the subject matter of the present suit.
"This court spent around 30 minutes time to read the said letter as a whole but except a propaganda of defendant, nothing material has been found," it noted.
The court said the present suit was pending for around eight years and added, "The present file is very voluminous and when this court tried to know the reason of delay, it was found that the defendant is in the habit of delaying the process of law on one ground or the other. Similar letters were received by post or personally by the defendant for as many as 35 times."
The judge said instead of pursuing the present case in a lawful manner by participating in the trial personally or through advocate, the defendant was simply trying to divert the attention of the court from effectively holding the trial.
"The office of the Prime Minister, the CJI, Chief Justice of Delhi High Court of Delhi and Director General, CSIR, and the court of undersigned are the public institutions and heavily occupied for discharging their official functions and the action of the defendant in repeatedly sending one or the other letter without making any sense or without pointing out any specific grievance, only wastes the precious time of all such institutions including this court."
The judge said instead of spending 30 minutes time on the letter, the time could have been used for reading the file of other genuine cases.
The judge also asked why a separate complaint ought not be not filed against him under Section 246 (dishonestly making false claim in court) of BNS. PTI MNR MNR AMK
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