SUPREME COURT RULING

Delhi Law Academy Jaipur presents below for aspirants of Rajasthan Judicial Service (RJS), DJS, PCS (J) and other Judicial Services throughout India a very important judgment of the Supreme Court of India on wilful disobedience of a prohibitory order.

Presented below: Summarized version [by Delhi Law Academy Jaipur] of the Supreme Court Judgment in the case of Hoshiar Singh v. Gurbachan Singh [1962 AIR 1089].

This judgment has been summarized in just about 4 pages by Delhi Law Academy while retaining the original language and original content.

J U D G M E N T

This is an appeal by special leave from the judgment and order of the Punjab High Court dated August 18, 1958 by which the said Court found the two appellants guilty of contempt of court and. instead of committing them for such contempt, administered a warning to them and directed them to pay Rs. 50/- each as costs of the respondent Gurbachan Singh.

On May 9 1958 appellant No. 1 made an order that Budh Singh and other allottees like him would be given possession’ of the land, allotted to them. The date fixed for such delivery of possession was May 20, 1958. On May 16, 1958 Gurbachan Singh and a number of other persons who were similarly threatened with dispossession filed petitions to the High Court under [Art. 226] of the Constitution challenging the legality of the action threatened against them. These petitions were put up before the learned Chief Justice on that very day, namely, May 16, 1958, when he issued an order staying delivery of possession till May 19, 1958, when the petitions were to come up for admission before a Division Bench, On May 19, 1958, the Division Bench extended the operation of the stay order until May 23, 1958. In the High Court the appellants did not dispute that the first order staying delivery of possession up to May 19, 1958 was communicated to them on May 19, 1958 on which date the notice from the High Court reached Sirsa. It appears that a notice of the second order extending the stay of delivery possession till May 23, 1958, was not officially communicated to the appellants till May 21, 1958. The allegation on behalf of the respondent was that on May 20, 1958, which was the relevant date, the two appellants were informed by certain interested persons, to whom we shall presently refer, that in extension of the stay order up to May 23, 1958, had been granted by the High Court’ In spite of this information, however, the second appellant, in consultation with and under instruction, of the first appellants formally dispossessed the respondent and handed over possession of the land to Budh Singh.

In these circumstances the allegation on behalf of the respondent was that the two appellants bad committed contempt of court by disobeying the order of the, High Court staving delivery of possession till May 23. 1958. The respondent made an application, to the High court, for taking suitable action against the two appellants. This application was made, on May 27, 1958. On this application the High Court issued notice and after hearing the parties, Falshaw, J. (as he then was) who dealt with the application came to the conclusion that the two appellants were aware of the order of the High Court extending the operation of the stay order and yet they disobeyed the said order by dispossessing the respondent and handing over possession to Budh Singh. He held them guilty of contempt of court, but at the same time expressed the opinion that the appellants honestly believed that they were not bound to hold their hands in the absence of an official communication of the ‘High Court’s order extending the operation of the stay order.

It is not disputed that “disobedience of a judgment or order requiring a person to do any act other than the payment of money, or to abstain from doing anything is a contempt of court punishable by attachment or committal”; but disobedience, it is argued, if it is to be punishable as a contempt, must be wilful; in other words, the party against whom a proceeding by way of contempt is taken must know that order before it can be said that he has disobeyed it.

It is worthy of note here that in the counter-affidavits filed on behalf of the appellants the point was made on their behalf was that they considered it unsafe to rely on the applications and affidavits made, in view of the background of enmity between the parties. The two appellants did not say in their counter affidavits that they came to know of the stay order only in one case and not in the others; such a point does not appear to have been specifically made on behalf of the appellants at any stage of the proceedings in the High Court. Therefore, we have come to the conclusion that the appellants knew of the order of the High Court in all the cases and it is not correct to say that the appellants knew of the order of the High Court only in one case and not in the others.

The second point which has been urged on behalf of the appellants is that in the absence of an official communication of the order, they were justified in not acting on what they came to know from interested parties and their advocate. The learned Advocate for the appellants has submitted that in a case of this nature, before wilful disobedience of the order of the High Court could be imputed against the appellants, it was legally essential that the order should be officially communicated or served on the appellants and in the absence of such communication or service, the proceeding for contempt must fail. We are unable to accept this contention as correct.

The order in the present case was a prohibitory order and if the appellants knew that the High Court had prohibited delivery of possession till May 23, 1958, it was undoubtedly the duty of the appellants to carry out that order.

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Taking into considerations all these circumstances we are satisfied that there was in this case in the eye of the law, a wilful disobedience of the order of the High Court staying delivery of possession, even though the appellants might have wrongly but honestly believed that it was not safe to act on the information given to them by Ganga Bishan.

In the matter of a prohibitory order it is well-settled that it is not necessary that the order should have been served upon the party against whom it has been granted in order to justify committal for breach of such an order, provided it is proved that the person complained against had notice of the order aliunde. The distinction between prohibitory orders and orders of an affirmative nature was adverted to in N. Baksi v. O. K. Ghosh and a large number of decisions were referred to in support of the rule that in respect of a prohibitory order service of the order was not essential for founding an action in contempt.

Lastly our attention has been, drawn to the statements made by the respondent in para. 22 of his petition to the effect that though appellant No. 2 made a report about delivery of possession in respect of the land of the respondent, no actual dispossession could be made because cotton crop was standing on the land and a large number of persons had gathered there.

The argument before us is that if, according to the respondent himself, no actual dispossession took place then this is not a fit case in which action for contempt should be taken against the appellants. It has been submitted on behalf of the appellants that contempt proceedings are of an extraordinary nature and the Court should be reluctant to exercise its extraordinary power if the action complained of is of a slight or trifling nature and does not cause any substantial loss or prejudice to the complainant. It has been argued that if the respondent himself said that-he had not been actually dispossessed, then there was no reason for proceeding against the appellants for contempt of court.

As to the first submission we may draw attention to the statements of appellant No. 2 in para 21 of his affidavit in which he said that so far as the respondent’s land was concerned, possession was delivered to Budh Singh. This statement of appellant No. 2 clearly shows that the two appellants took the very action which was prohibited by the High Court by its order dated May 19, 1958.

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