The Himachal Pradesh High Court demanded the initiation of a contempt of court proceeding against Prof. Nishtha Jaiswal, the Vice-Chancellor of Himachal Pradesh National Law University (HPNLU) in Shimla, during its session on Tuesday.
Justice Ajay Mohan Goel noted that Prof. Jaiswal's deliberate act of assigning the responsibility of adhering to a previous court directive to the university's registrar suggested a willful disobedience of the court's order.
"The explanation furnished by the Vice Chancellor that because the Vice Chancellor was not personally available, therefore, the Vice Chancellor delegated the power to the Registrar to do the needful, is no answer in the eyes of law. If that was so, nothing prevented the party from moving an appropriate application before this Court seeking either the modification of the order passed by the Court or some more time to comply with the same," the Court observed.
Earlier this month, the Court was told that the student's representation was heard by the Vice-Chancellor, although it was later decided on by the Registrar.
The Court took a grave stance on this submission on January 1, making a statement that...
"If that is so, then the issue is more grave and serious. This Court fails to understand how, when there was a direction issued by the Court that the representation has to be decided by the Vice Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor, despite hearing the petitioner, delegated the power to pass the order to the Registrar. This is a clear cut attempt of overreaching the directions passed by the Court as well as willful disobedience of the directions passed by the Court."
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