‘Don’t treat it as prestige’: SC tells Kerala IAS officers to appear before HC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has refused to interfere with a Kerala High Court order directing senior IAS officers K.R. Jyothilal and Sharmila Mary Joseph to personally appear in a contempt case over the implementation of pay revision for aided college teachers.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta told the officers not to treat their personal appearance as a matter of “prestige” and directed them to appear before the High Court.

The High Court had directed Kerala Additional Chief Secretary K.R. Jyothilal and Principal Secretary Sharmila Mary Joseph and some other officials to appear personally in the contempt proceedings. Challenging that order, the two officers, along with some other officials, approached the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court declined to grant them relief, observing that personal appearance was necessary to ascertain the government’s response to the alleged non-compliance with the High Court’s earlier directions.

Senior advocate Jaideep Gupta and standing counsel P.S. Zulfikar Ali, appearing for the Kerala government, urged the Supreme Court to allow the state to file its response in the contempt case and exempt the officers from personal appearance. But bench declined. The judges also remarked that the officers would be “well taken care of” by the High Court.

The contempt proceedings stem from a long-running dispute over the implementation of the Seventh Pay Revision for teachers of aided colleges. On September 18, 2020, the Kerala High Court had directed the state government to consider the representation submitted by aided college teachers seeking implementation of the Seventh Pay Revision and issue an order within three months. Pursuant to the direction, the state government issued an order in 2021, providing for implementation of the revised pay from 2021 onwards.

The High Court subsequently set aside the government order and directed the state to implement the pay revision with effect from 2016. The contempt petition alleges that the government has failed to fully comply with the High Court’s direction to implement the pay revision with retrospective effect. The Kerala government has maintained that giving retrospective effect to the pay revision from 2016 would impose an additional financial burden of around ₹2,500 crore on the state.