A punishment which would benefit the people and the environment at large - this could be the apt way to describe a recent Punjab and Haryana High Court order.

Pulling up a top Haryana education official for defying previous orders the court did not impose any fine or jail term, but ordered him to plant 5,000 tree saplings.

Haryana's director of elementary education R S Kharab, will now have to plant these saplings in middle-level schools by the beginning of monsoon and then submit a report to the court.

Haryana Advocate General clarified that the punishment was a "corrective measure" and Kharab was not held "guilty of contempt".

Kharab was pulled up by the court after he failed to implement a 2012 order by the HC to promote some drawing teachers in government school as elementary school headmasters.