Girish Narain Pande tenders unconditional apology to Court
SHILLONG: The High Court of Meghalaya has pardoned one Girish Narain Pande from Lucknow after the person in question sent an unconditional apology to the Chief Justice of the High Court about his RTI where he sought answers regarding Section 51 A of the Constitution of India.
Pande in his earlier letter had highlighted the steps taken by his Sarv Seva Trust to popularize the Constitution in many villages and wanted to know from the Chief Justice what initiatives he had taken to make people aware about the Indian Constitution.
The Double Bench of Justice Uma Nath Singh and Justice T.N.K. Singh accepted the unconditional apology of Pande from Sarv Seva Trust and pardoned him.
The Court also directed Pande that the letter in question addressed to Constitutional functionaries of the Judiciary should be withdrawn within one week.
In the hearing, Pande, the author of the impugned letter and one of the members of the Trust, Pradip Kr. Singh, were present in Court.
Earlier, the High Court had directed the DGPs of Meghalaya and Uttar Pradesh to investigate the activities of Girish Narain Pande and his ‘Sarv Seva Trust’.
“During the course of hearing from the statement given by Girish Narain Pande, it appears that the impugned letter was addressed to the judicial constitutional authorities by mistake. He has filed an affidavit along with unconditional apology and also undertakes to withdraw all such letters addressed to judicial functionaries forthwith,” the Court order said.
Earlier in his affidavit, Pande unconditionally tendered his apology at the first instance for having committed this mistake and added that during ‘Samvidhan Katha’ meetings, especially in rural areas, the revelation of people’s ignorance about the Constitution of India emotionally impelled him to request for help from the Constitutional authorities in this big task of making people of India aware of the Constitution as the deponent felt himself very-very small against the gigantic task.
He also felt that when people will be aware about the Constitution, they will respect more the ideals and institutions of the Constitution, including Courts, as enshrined in the Fundamental Duties.
He also submitted that he did not realize that the text, tenure and tone of the letter were such that it was not appropriate for being sent to the Chief Justice and the judiciary.
