Unknown vs State Of Uttarakhand And Others". ...
2022 Latest Caselaw 2719 UK

SL.          Office Notes,
No.   Date      reports,
               orders or                 COURT'S OR JUDGE'S ORDERS
             proceedings
             or directions
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              Registrar's
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                             CLCON No. 447 of 2019
                             Hon'ble Sanjaya Kumar Mishra, J.

Mr. Nagesh Aggarwal, learned counsel for the petitioner.

Mr. M.S. Tyagi, learned Senior Counsel assisted by Mr. Sunil Chandra, learned counsel for the respondent.

In this civil contempt application, the petitioner - complainant has prayed to punish the respondent/opposite party for willful disobedience of the Hon'ble Court's order dated 13.06.2018 passed in Writ Petition (M/S) No. 1548 of 2018 "Kabool Chand Vs. State of Uttarakhand and Others". On that day, the learned Coordinate Bench has passed the following order:-

"Learned counsel for the respondents prays for and is granted four weeks' time for filing counter affidavit. Till the next date of listing impugned order dated 28.03.2018 shall remain stayed. Parties shall not change the nature of the property in question."

It is submitted that the interim order was not extended thereafter. On several dates, in 2018, the contemnor respondent has alienated some parts of the property in question. The application for vacation of stay has been filed but the same has not been dealt with by the Court and as yet, the same is pending.

Thus, taking into consideration the aforesaid facts and the ratio decided by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of "J & K State Vs. Mohd. Yakoob Khan & Others, (1972) 4 SCC 167", wherein the Supreme Court has held that the contempt application is not maintainable for violation of interim order, when application for vacation of stay is pending. The relevant paragraph of the above judgment is quoted hereunder:-

"6. We, therefore, hold that the High Court should have first taken up the stay matter without any threat to the respondents in the writ case of being punished for contempt. Only after disposing it of, the other case should have been taken up. It is further significant to note that the respondents before the High Court were raising a serious objection disputing the claim of the writ petitioner. Therefore, an order in the nature of mandatory direction could not have been justified unless the Court was in a position to consider the objections and record a finding, prima facie in nature, in favour of the writ petitioner. Besides challenging the claim on merits, the respondent is entitled to raise a plea of non-maintainability of a writ application filed for the purpose of execution a decree. It appears that at an earlier stage the decree in question was actually put in execution when the parties are said to have entered into a compromise. According to the case of the State the entire liability under the decree (read with the compromise) has already been discharged. The dispute, therefore, will be covered by Section 47 of the CPC. It will be a serious question to consider whether in these circumstances the writ petitioner was entitled to maintain his application under Article 226 of the Constitution at all. We do not want to decide any of these controversies between the parties at this stage except holding that the orders passed in the contempt proceeding were not justified, being pre- mature, and must, therefore, be entirely ignored. The High Court should first take up the stay matter in the writ case, and dispose it of by an appropriate order. Only thereafter it shall proceed to consider whether the State and its authorities could be accused of being guilty of having committed contempt of Court."

In that view of the matter, the contempt petition is dropped.

(S.K. Mishra, J.) 29.08.2022 (Grant urgent certified copy of this order, as per Rules)

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