Mumbai, Dec 25 (TOI): In a first order of its kind, the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal presided over by Justice A H Joshi has asked an undersecretary to pay a cost of Rs10,000 to chief secretary Swadheen Kshatriya and principal secretary (services) Mukesh Khullar for initiating contempt proceedings against them to derive job by calling them before the tribunal.

Agriculture department under-secretary Sharad Balkrishna Pawaskar had initiated contempt proceedings against Kshatriya and Khullar, saying, despite the fact that the tribunal asked them to promote him to the rank of deputy secretary, the order was not implemented.

Justice Joshi observed in his order: "By filing the present application for action of contempt, the applicant has engaged himself in an exercise of arm-twisting, which is not only unjust and unfair, but is an exercise, which is vexatious."

The tribunal, however, had never asked the state government to promote Pawaskar as deputy secretary, but had asked Khullar to convene a meeting of the appropriate establishment board within four weeks and consider Pawaskar's case for promotion to the deputy secretary's post.

Pawaskar had later submitted an application under the Right to Information Act to secure relevant documents from the general administration department. The department took the view that Pawaskar's promotion order should wait in view of a pending departmental probe.

"It is perceived from the oral submissions made on behalf of Pawaskar, that he believes that this tribunal has ordered him to be promoted to the post of deputy secretary... what we see from the submissions made by him, is that he desires and expects is besides exact text of the operative order. The submission of Pawaskar that MAT order is wilfully disobeyed, is not available either on record," Justice Joshi remarked.

Justice Joshi observed that instead of choosing a rightful and appropriate remedy, Pawaskar has elected for filing application for action for contempt, which of course is inappropriate, rather erroneous, may be that the applicant wants to derive some joy by calling senior officers before the tribunal.