Enforcing the Order: Contempt of Court

In one line

A writ is worth what its enforcement is worth, and what enforces it is the power to send an officer to prison.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: civil contempt is defined by section 2(b) of the Contempt of Courts Act 1971 as 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; it is punishable under section 12 with simple imprisonment up to six months or a fine up to two thousand rupees, or both, subject to the power to accept an apology.

The provisions

Section 2(a). Contempt of court means civil contempt or criminal contempt.

Section 2(b). 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.

Section 2(c). Criminal contempt means the publication of any matter or the doing of any other act which scandalises or tends to scandalise or lowers or tends to lower the authority of any court, or prejudices or interferes or tends to interfere with the due course of any judicial proceeding, or interferes or tends to interfere with or obstructs or tends to obstruct the administration of justice in any other manner.

Section 10. The High Court has the same jurisdiction, powers and authority in respect of contempt of courts subordinate to it as it has in respect of contempt of itself.

Section 11. A High Court has jurisdiction to inquire into or try a contempt of itself or of any court subordinate to it whether the contempt is alleged to have been committed within or outside the local limits of its jurisdiction, and whether the person alleged to be guilty is within or outside those limits. For administrative law this matters because the officer who disobeys is often posted at a district headquarters or at a State secretariat far from the seat of the court, and section 11 removes the argument that he is beyond its reach.

Section 12(1). A contempt of court may be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to two thousand rupees, or with both, with a proviso that the accused may be discharged or the punishment remitted on an apology made to the satisfaction of the court; and an Explanation that an apology shall not be rejected merely because it is qualified or conditional if it is made bona fide.

Section 12(3). Where a person is found guilty of civil contempt and the court considers that a fine will not meet the ends of justice and that imprisonment is necessary, it shall direct that he be detained in a civil prison for a period not exceeding six months.