When question of initiating action under the provisions of Contempt of Courts Act arises, High Courts are under obligation to keep themselves within the bounds of their authority

Hitarth Atulkumar Chag vs Sunil Ishrani on 1 May, 2023

Bench: Honourable Justice Ashutosh Shastri

R/MISC. CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 345 of 2023

By way of this application under section 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, the applicant has come forward with a relief to initiate proceedings against respondent authorities under the provisions of Contempt of Courts Act by framing charge and punish them for willful disobedience of the directions issued by Hon’ble Apex Court in the case of Lalita Kumari v. State of Uttar Pradeshreported in (2014) 2 SCC 1. Section 12 deals with punishment for contempt and it may extend to imprisonment for a term of six months or a fine which may extend to two thousand rupees or both.

Facts

The father of the applicant committed suicide at his residential place and on the same day, a suicide note was found from the place of incident. As per the applicant, the note indicated that he was harassed by the accused persons, one of them was a sitting Member of Parliament The police authority then recorded the statement of family members. However, as per the applicant, the police had not registered the First Information Report and thereby they had failed to discharge their duty. On account of this neglect, the applicant submitted a written complaint and requested the police to register the complaint against the accused persons but in vain. Then, a detailed representation was made to respondent No.1 as well as respondent No.2 by pointing out clearly to register the offence. Still nothing was proceeded which constrained the applicant to forward several representations to various authorities on their official email but no actions were initiated and as per the petitioner, the authorities were in clear defiance of the order passed by the Hon’ble Apex Court in the case of Lalita Kumari (supra) and hence, they are to be dealt with and punished under the provisions of the Contempt of Courts Act for willfully disobeying the order Hon’ble Apex Court.

The applicant’s advocate contended that the police authority’s inaction to register FIR is clearly in conflict with law laid down by Hon’ble Apex Court in case of Lalita Kumari (supra) and that the registration of FIR is mandatory under Section 154 of Code of Criminal Procedure if information discloses commission of a cognizable offence and no preliminary inquiry is permissible in such a situation. As per section 154, any information given to a police authority regarding a cognizable offence shall be reduced in writing.

On the other hand, the public prosecutor appearing for the respondents contended that there is no contempt committed by the police authority in any manner, and the material gathered by the authority clearly indicates that there is no cognizable offence committed.

Judgement

The Court held that in the case of Lalita Kumari (supra), the Hon’ble Supreme Court had not clearly observed that failure to comply to the decision would lead to consequences and High Courts of the country having territorial jurisdiction can be approached.

It held that though it was conscious about the fact that directions issued by Hon’ble Supreme Court had full force, however, when question of exercising contempt jurisdiction arises, a High Court has its own limitation by virtue of democratic provisions. Had it been a writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, probably, the matter would have been viewed from a different angle. The Court ruled that it had no jurisdiction to hear the matter.

Hence, the application was dismissed for want of jurisdiction

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JUDGEMENT REVIEWED BY AMIT ARAVIND