UP Chief Secretary apologies to SC over Statue case

To escape from the axe of Supreme Court, UP Chief secretary Atul Kumar Gupta on November 04 tendered an unqualified apology to the SC in the matter of construction of monuments and memorials on which the apex court had earlier ordered to stop the construction.

During the hearing of the case on October 06, 2009 a two-judge bench comprising Justice B N Agrawal (now retired) and Justice Aftab Alam had served a contempt notice to the UP chief secretary in terms of violating the order of the court and going ahead with the construction at the memorial sites.

SC had warned the state government and directed the Chief Secretary to appear before the court on November 04.

Following the direction of the apex court, Gupta today submitted an unqualified apology to the court. ‘I had acted in compliance of the orders passed by this honourable court. However, I hereby tender my sincere and unqualified apology for any kind of disobedience or deviation, aberration of misconstruction, if any, which might have happened in implementing the orders passed by this honourable court.’

‘I am duty bound to comply with the orders of this honourable court and had never intended to disobey or to disrespect the orders of this honourable court to do anything which may amount to contempt of the orders of this honourable court,’ said Atul Kumar in his affidavit.

Later the court had posted the matter to for further hearing on October 26 to special Forest Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices S H Kapadia and Aftab Alam.
The Bench declined the plea of Uttar Pradesh government to allow the continuance of the work on the ground that 75 per cent of the work has been completed.