Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on April 16 directed an IAS officer to undertake social work to avoid penalty imposed on him in contempt of a court case. The officer in question has been asked to serve Iftar food to Muslims in the ongoing month of Ramzan to at least 20 persons for one week at any mosque. The officer in question is Syed Yasin Qureshi, who works for the Excise department.
According to a report published in the Times of India, a single bench had earlier imposed a penalty Syed Yasin Qureshi, Excise Deputy Commissioner, for not following the court’s order to release a jaggery lorry on time. The officer filed a contempt appeal later. The state’s additional advocate general, J Ramachandra Rao, who was representing, him informed the court that the officer has no previous contempt record.
After hearing the appeal, a bench of Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy decided to drop the penalty, provided the officer serve Iftar food to at least 10 persons for one week at a mosque. It may be recalled that earlier in a contempt case, the court had asked Nalgonda collector Prashanth J. Patil to do social service at orphanage for two hours on weekends for six months as a punishment for contempt of court.
Retired district supply officer from the Telangana government, Sandhya Rani, was earlier also directed to arrange food for inmates of any of the orphanages located within a radius of 10 km from his residence on the occasion of Ugadi and Sriramanavami for similar reasons.