The concept of contempt of court seeks to protect judicial Institutions from motivated attacks and unwarranted criticism and as a legal mechanism to punish those who lower its authority. The logic behind the contempt of court is that people are bound to obey the judgement of the court which aims to serve the administration of justice. In this regard, we can say that the main objective behind the contempt of court is to secure the process of Justice. The concept of contempt of court is several centuries old. In England, it is a common law principle that seeks to protect the judicial power of the King, initially exercised by himself and later by the panel of judges who acted in his name. Violation of the judge’s orders was considered an affront to the king himself. Over time any kind of disobedience to judges or obstruction of the implementation of their directives or comments and actions that showed disrespect towards them came to be punishable.
Provisions under the Indian constitution:
Article 129 of the Constitution conferred on the supreme court the power to punish contempt of itself.
Article 215 conferred the corresponding power only to high courts The Contempt of court act 1971 gift statutory back into the idea.
Case Law:
P.N. Duda v. P. Shiv Shankar and others – Article 129 of the Constitution declares that the Supreme Court shall be a court of record and that it shall have all the powers of such a court including the power to punish for contempt of itself.
Types of contempt of court:
(1) Civil Contempt – Section 2 (b) of the contempt of court act, 1971. Civil contempt means wilful disobedience to any judgement, decree, direction, order, writ or other processes of a court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court.
(2) Criminal Contempt – Section 2(c) of the contempt of courts act, 1971. Criminal contempt means the publication (whether by words, spoken or written or by signs or by visible representation or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever it is.
Section 12 of The Contempt Of Court Act, 1971 – Punishment for Contempt of court. 6 months imprisonment or Rs. 2000 fine or both.
Recent cases:
– Man sings songs from Juhi Chawla’s movies during a hearing on 5G rollout, court orders contempt charge.
–The Supreme Court imposed an Rs. 1 fine on activist-lawyer Prashant Bhushan days after holding him guilty of criminal contempt of court for two tweets against the apex court and Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde.
– Petitions filed in SC seeking contempt of court proceedings against the RBI governor, others.
– Multiple contempt petitions filed in SC against Shaktikanta Das, bank forum chief, others.
source: Google.
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