April 10, 2019: Supreme Court has held that if a court directs the executive to consider something and the executive wing passes an order after consideration, such order can be challenged only through writ proceedings and not by way of contempt of earlier order of the court.
Justice Hemant Gupta speaking for a two judges bench has passed the judgment titled N.K. JANU vs LAKSHMI CHANDRA on 10.04.2019.
The Supreme Court was dealing with a case where earlier there was a direction to the executives to consider the regularization of the workers. The executive wing after considering the matter had not found any justification for regularization and therefore it passed an order rejecting the claim.
The Supreme Court observed “Once an order has been passed by the Department, it was open to the respondent to challenge the said order by way of a Writ Petition, but the Contempt Jurisdiction could not be invoked. The Contempt Court is to ensure that the order of the Court is complied with. The order of the Court on 23.10.2008 was to consider the case of the respondent for regularization of his services and for payment of minimum regular pay scale”.
The Supreme Court further observed “Since the appellants have considered the claim of regularization and/or payment of minimum of pay scale, the only remedy of the respondent was by way of the Writ Petition. The High Court has exceeded the Contempt Jurisdiction to compel the officers of the State to appear in court and in fact, the High Court travelled much beyond the orders passed by the Single Bench on 23.10.2008”.
Read the judgment here:
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