The jury is out on whether the Supreme Court should have spared the rod on the MP who broke the law in Delhi but on the very same day, Calcutta High Court has given an officer a chance to prove that mercy need not always be misplaced.

The copious tears shed by a government official prompted a division bench of the high court to stay for a week its order to send him to jail for five days for failing to implement a five-year-old directive.

The division bench headed by Chief Justice Debasish Kargupta showed the leniency after the senior-most law officers of the government informed the judge that Sanat Kumar Biswas, a block land and land reforms officer from West Midnapore, was crying inconsolably.

Advocate-general Kishore Dutta and additional advocate-general Abhratosh Majumdar rushed to the chief justice’s court and prayed for a stay on the imprisonment order after Biswas, in his late fifties, broke down in the room of the deputy sheriff.

“Once the court orders someone’s imprisonment, preparations to take him or her to custody starts by taking him or her to the room of the deputy sheriff, whose office hands over the person to police. The officer was crying inconsolably and his colleagues appealed to the government lawyers to inform the court,” a source said.

At the hearing earlier in the day, the court had found out that its order for recording 11 plots belonging to the petitioner had not been fully complied with. Four plots were yet to be recorded. “The court passed the order sending the officer to jail for five days,” said a lawyer.

Once Biswas was taken to the deputy sheriff’s office, he broke down.

“He kept saying he didn’t know the details of the order as he had been made the land officer only a year ago. As he kept crying, other officers of his department came to see him…. Some officers of the land department in Nabanna also rushed to the high court,” the source said.

In the post-lunch session, the government lawyers approached the chief justice and pleaded that the original order had not been clear to the officer. “He is repeatedly breaking down…. Please give an interim stay,” pleaded Dutta.

Chief Justice Kargupta said the government lawyers should have communicated the order with clarity. “This is

happening regularly with accused expressing ignorance about court orders. Such excuses cannot be entertained by the courts,” the chief justice said.

Justice Kargupta added that Biswas should have mentioned in his compliance report that the four plots could not be recorded in the name of the petitioner.

“But since you are saying so, I am giving an interim stay on the order for seven days. By this time, the accused will have to either move the Supreme Court or carry out the order fully and file a compliance report before this court to avoid imprisonment,” the chief justice added.