Contempt of Court Time for a Relook

According to Oswald, any action that has the potential to interfere with or prejudice the parties or their witnesses during a legal proceeding is considered to be in contempt of court. This includes any behaviour that has the tendency to bring the authority and administration of law into disrespect or disregard. According to Halsbury’s definition, contempt is the use of spoken or written language in a manner that obstructs or has the potential to obstruct the administration of justice.

According to Lord Hardwick, there are three primary types of acts that are considered to be in contempt of court

1. Bringing disrepute upon the court system itself.

2. Mistreating individuals who have a stake in the outcome of the case in the presence of the court.

3. causing the public to form an opinion before the case has even been heard.

On the other hand, there are two primary categories of disdain in India

1. Civil contempt

2. Criminal contempt

Civil Contempt

Civil contempt is defined as the willful disobedience of any judgement, decree, direction, order, writ, or other process of a court, as well as the willful breach of an undertaking given to a court, according to section 2(b) of the Contempt of Courts Act, which was passed in 1971.

As a result, it is possible to deduce from the definition that was presented earlier that there are two crucial components that together make up the offence of civil contempt:

1. Disobedience of any judgement, decree, direction, order, writ, or other process of a court, as well as an undertaking given to the court.

For someone to be found in contempt of court, there must be evidence that they disobeyed a lawfully issued order. An order encompasses all different types of judgements and orders, including final, preliminary, ex-parte, and contempt orders. It is also possible to be found in contempt of court if an individual disobeys a court’s decree, direction, writ, or other process, as well as an undertaking that was given to the court. In the case of H.Puninder v. K. K. Sethi, the Supreme Court ruled that in the absence of a stay order in an appeal or revision to a higher court, the order that is being appealed against must be complied with, subject to any order passed at a later stage; otherwise, the contempt court is free to proceed further on the merit of the contempt case.

In the matter of the interim relief and stay order, the Supreme Court sided with a different interpretation. In the case of State of Jammu and Kashmir v. Mohammad Yakub Khan [3, the Supreme Court held that where a stay vacation application has been promptly filed by the respondent against whom the stay order has been passed and the same is pending for disposal, the court shouldn’t proceed in the contempt case unless and until the stay vacation application has been decided. In other words, the court shouldn’t move forward with the contempt case unless and until the stay vacation application has been decided.

A violation of an undertaking that was made in any of the ways that were discussed above would be considered to be in contempt of court.

2. The disobedience or breach must have been willful, deliberate, and intentional on the part of the person who committed it.

For a person to be held in civil contempt, it takes more than simple disobedience or violation of the court’s order on their part. A willful, deliberate, and intentional act of disobedience or breach is required for this category. In order for the court to exercise its authority to punish the contemnor, it must be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the contemnor has willfully, deliberately, and intentionally disobeyed the order of the court.

When evaluating the actions of a person who is the subject of a contempt proceeding, no court, including the court that has jurisdiction over the contempt proceeding, has the authority to take into consideration irrelevant particulars or technicalities.

If the order has been substantially complied with and a reasonable explanation has been provided for the delay in compliance with the order, then the contempt will not lie because the violation was not willful and deliberate as required by the definition of contempt.

Conclusion 

As far as the breach of undertaking as contempt of court is concerned, the reasoning behind this is that the contemptor obtains a beneficial order for himself from the court, by giving an undertaking, and if he fails to honour the undertaking at a later stage, he plays a serious fraud on the court, and by doing so, he interferes with the administration of justice by bringing the court into disrespect. In other words, the contemptor plays a role in bringing the court into disrepair.