An Accra High Court will rule on a contempt application praying the court to commit 21 Governing Council members of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to prison for breaching an injunction application.
Dr Seth Awuku Manteaw, the Director of the CSIR Institute for Scientific and Technological Information (INSTI), on March 28, 2024, filed an injunction application restraining the CSIR and its agents, privies, servants, assigns, and workers from any advertising endeavours or appointments aimed at replacing him as Director of the Institute until the adjudication of a writ before the court.
The court has ordered the parties to file their written submissions within two weeks and return on March 19, 2025, for the ruling.
Dr Manteaw, the applicant, held that the writ of summons, together with the statement of claim and the injunction application were served on the CSIR, the principal respondent.
“That, I subsequently filed a supplementary affidavit in support on May 21, 2024, and the injunction was moved on June 18, 2024, after several adjournments,” he said.
“That, notwithstanding, the pendency of the decision of the court on the injunction application, the respondents at its 189th Governing Council meeting of the CSIR held on June 27, 2024, directed that I step aside as Director of CSIR-INSTI and went on to appoint Dr Paul Danquah, the Deputy Director as the Acting Director of CSIR-INSTI,” the plaintiff held.
It said the actions of the respondents, notwithstanding the pending determination of the injunction, were “deliberate” and same was “calculated to obstruct the administration of justice, prejudice, disrespect and render the outcome of the case nugatory.”
The plaintiff said the respondents’ actions “are an impairment on the dignity and authority of the court and they should, therefore, not go unpunished.”
The plaintiff, therefore, in his motion on notice, prayed the court to cite and commit the respondents to prison for contempt.
CSIR, through its lawyer, filed an affidavit in opposition to the injunction application on May 6, 2024.
The respondents are Professor Paul P. Bosu, Prof. Robert Kingsford-Adaboh, Prof. Benjamin J.B. Nyarko, Prof. Paul Kingsley Buah-Bassuah, Prof. Daniel A. Ofori, Dr Ignatius Awinibuno, Dr M. Agyekum Addo, Prof. Rita Akosua Dickson, Mr Wilson Attah Krofah, Kwabena Essilfie Quaison, and Dr Solomon Gyan Ansah.
The rest are Patrick Yaw Nimo, Dr Winfred F.A. Nelson, Prof Mohammed Salifu, Dr Kofi Amponsah Benefo, Prof. Sampson K. Agodzo, Ahmed Dasana Nantogmah, Alhaji Dr Mohammed Bin Ibrahim, Delali Nutsukpo, Prof. Ibok N. Oduro, and Andrews Adjei Yeboah.
The contempt application was called on August 14, 2024, by a virtual court, presided over by Justice Richard Appietu, and adjourned to October 30, 2024, because most of the respondents had not been served with the contempt application.
Last year the High Court gave an order for a substituted service because the Council members had been evading service.
The service was in December 2024 posted on the Notice Board of the High Court Complex in Accra and the Notice Board of the CSIR for 21 days.
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