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Civil Contempt

The document discusses the types and definitions of civil and criminal contempt according to the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. It also outlines several valid defenses against contempt charges, including if the disobedience was not willful, the order was vague or ambiguous, compliance was impossible, the court lacked jurisdiction, or the person was unaware or not served the order. Defenses aim to prove the conduct was not deliberate or in willful disregard of the court's order.

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77 views

Civil Contempt

The document discusses the types and definitions of civil and criminal contempt according to the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. It also outlines several valid defenses against contempt charges, including if the disobedience was not willful, the order was vague or ambiguous, compliance was impossible, the court lacked jurisdiction, or the person was unaware or not served the order. Defenses aim to prove the conduct was not deliberate or in willful disregard of the court's order.

Uploaded by

virat singh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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As per the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971

the category is of 2 types-


• Civil Contempt
• Criminal Contempt
These are defined in following way-
civil contempt means wilful disobedience
to any judgment, decree, direction, order,
writ or other process of a court or wilful
breach of an undertaking given to a court.
Criminal Contempt means the publication (whether
by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible
representation, or otherwise) of any matter or the
doing of any other act whatsoever which
(i) scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or
tends to lower the authority of, any court; or
(ii) prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with,
the due course of any judicial proceeding; or
(iii) interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or
tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any
other manner.
The defence to a contemner in Civil
Contempt can be considered under
following headings:
(1) Disobedience or breach of undertaking
was not wilful- Under cases of Civil
Contempt, it is necessry that there has
been wilful disobedience to any judgment,
decree, direction, order, writ or other
process of a court or wilful breach of an
undertaking given to a court contd…
In case, the contemner is successful to
prove that there was no wilful
disobedience or breach of undertaking
given to a court, he may be absolved of
the liability of civil contempt. In his
defence, the contemner can plead of the
disobedience or breach of undertaking
given to a court which was not wilful.
Where an order of the court has been
passed without jurisdiction, the
disobedience of that order will be a
defence for the accused person in a
contempt proceeding. An order passed by
a court having no jurisdiction over that
matter, can be disobeyed, as there can
be no violation of the order of that court
which had no jurisdiction to pass the order.
The ambiguity in the order of the Court is a
valid defence to the contemner in contempt
proceedings. So the order of the court must
not be vague for obedience by the parties.
In R.M. Ramaul v. State of Himachal Pradesh,
(1991Cr.l.J. 1415 (SC) the Supreme Court
directed the corporation to restore the
seniority of the petitioner in service notionally
from the anterior date, and such direction
was carried out by treating him contd…
as promoted with effect from a particular
date without a monetary benefit for that
period. The Supreme Court held that since
there was no specific direction with regard
to monetary benefits in the order, the
violation for which was complained,
technically there was no case of
contempt.
The Supreme Court had by its order
directed the government to fix the scale of
pay of instructors working in the Education
Department of Haryana with effect from
the date of their initial appointment by
ignoring certain breaks in service. In the
contempt petition it was alleged that by
not paying the arrears of salary to the
instructors in terms of the order of the
Supreme Court, the respondents contd…
Has committed contempt.
The Court held that since
there was no specific direction in the order
to pay any particular amount to any
Instructor, there was no contempt on the
part of the respondent.
It would be a valid defence to a contempt
proceeding to plead and establish that
the order of the court is vague.
Facts of the case- the Calcutta
High Court gave a direction to the
Municipal Authorities to grant sanction “as
expeditiously as possible and preferably
within a period of two weeks from that
date.” In contempt proceedings contd…
Initiated for non-compliance of the
direction, the High Court held that since
there was no specific time limit, such non-
compliance could not be regarded as
wilful or deliberate disregard of such
direction.
In S.K. Saha v. Gokul Chandra Dhara (1988)
Cr. L.J. 21 it has been held that a
proceeding for Civil Contempt can not be
predicated upon the disobedience of the
order or direction which provides scope for
different reasonable and rational
interpretation.
This view has been reiterated by the S.C.in
Contd…
Hari Nath Sharma v. Jaipur development
Authority (1995) 4 SCC 25 where it was held
that where two views are possible as to the
effect of Court Order and the respondent
acts on the basis of one such views, it can
not be said that he had disobeyed the
order of the Court.
In Attorney General v. Walthamstow, U.D.C.
(1895) 11 TLR 533 it has been held in the case
of disobedience of positive orders, that it is
the duty of the party concerned to find out
the proper means of obeying the order. It
would be a valid defence to say that the
compliance with the order was impossible.
In Mohd. Iqbal Khandey v. Abdul Majid Rather
AIR 1994 SC 2252 Sc has directed that
contempt proceeding should not be initiated
where it is impossible to comply with the order
of the court.
Ignorance of court’s order is a valid defence for the
person against whom contempt proceedings are to be
undertaken. Like Prafulla Kumar Sadhukhan v. Murari
Hait (1989) Cr. L.J. 39 (Calcutta), where party continues
to make construction of a boundary wall prior to
receiving an order of status quo under Section 144 (2) of
Cr.P.C. and without the knowledge of the order, there is
no question of contempt.
In Sukumar Mukhopadhyay v. T.D. Karamchandani
(1995) Cr. L.J. 1610 (Calcutta) it was held that when a
person is charged with violation of mandatory order, he
can successfully plead in defence that order was not
formally served to him.

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