The Telangana High Court has directed an IAS officer to refund Rs 15 lakh given by the state government to fight a defamation case against the weekly English magazine. Two PILs were filed in August 2015 challenging an order (GO) of the Telangana government.
Smita Sabharwal, an Indian Administrative Service officer in GO, was ordered to pay court fees and expenses for filing a civil suit seeking fine against the magazine’s management for publishing a news story. Sabharwal had alleged that an attempt has been made to defame him through the news and a cartoon published with it.
In a recently passed order, a division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili directed Sabharwal to refund the Rs 15 lakh sanctioned by the government within 90 days from the date of the judgement. According to the order, if the said amount is not returned by the officer within 90 days, the state will recover it from him within 30 days.
It said that this is a case in which an IAS officer had participated in a private program and some remarks were made against the officer and the Chief Minister in an article published by the magazine. As per the order, the IAS officer wanted to file a suit to claim the fine and it is certainly not an action of the state government against the magazine, hence in view of Article 282 of the Constitution of India, Sabharwal was not allowed to “any public Funds cannot be given for fighting a case under the term ‘grant for the purpose’.