HYDERABAD: The Telangana high court on Wednesday allowed Nalgonda district collector, Prashant J Patil, to escape six weeks in jail in a contempt case after he agreed to work with children in an orphanage every weekend. “Spend two hours every weekend with the students for the next six months. Your service will be certified by our principal district judge there,” a bench of Chief Justice Hima Kohli and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy told the IAS officer, reports Sagar Kumar Mutha.
Patil, who was Warangal joint collector earlier, along with P Sandhya Rani, then district supply officer, were dragged to court by a rice miller. Following some discrepancies found at the mill, civil supplies officials had registered a case against the miller and stopped his supply of paddy. The miller had approached the high court, which had asked the officials to restart paddy supply.
The two were charged with trying to subvert the court order. A single judge awarded them a Rs 2,000 penalty. If they failed to pay the fine, they were ordered to undergo simple imprisonment of six weeks. The two-judge bench last month asked the duo if they were willing to do some social service in place of the jail term and they agreed.