Manipur home commissioner sentenced for flouting court orders

Manipur home commissioner sentenced for flouting court orders
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

IMPHAL, JULY 15: Manipur home commissioner D S Poonia and an engineer of the state-owned Manitron were sentenced to imprisonment by a division bench of the Gauhati High Court in a criminal contempt case.

While Poonia was sentenced to one month's incarceration, the engineer, W Sudhirkumar Singh, was given a 15-day term yesterday by the court's Imphal bench comprising Justice H K Sema and Justice Surjamani Singh for misleading the court by providing false information.

The court also directed the registrar of the Imphal bench to execute the order through Imphal West SP after giving the convicted officers a month's deadline beginning yesterday.

Singh was originally deputed to the state election department for a year from November 1997. His deputation was further extended by Poonia, the then Chief electoral officer of Manipur, by another year.

The petitioner, Yumnam Ddimbajit Singh, an officer in the election department, challenged the engineer's extension on the ground that he (Dimbajit) was an eligible candidate for the post. He also challenged his deputation itself citing a government memorandum, dated August 18, 1982, which specified that only officers in government service and not from any corporation or autonomous body could be deputed to other government departments.