RAVI S.DHAVAN, J. - (1.) IS the civil contempt jurisdiction wrongly structured at the Allahabad High Court ? The concern of the Court is only on matters of civil contempt as opposed to criminal contempt or contempt ex facie curaei. It is logical that civil contempt will arise only should there be a complaint to a Court that an order, direction or judgment, has been violated. This in itself implies that there must be a proceeding, pending or decided, to occasion a complaint on the violation of the directions of the Court, whatever they may be. At the Allahabad High Court, of late, there has been unnecessary duplication of proceedings and the statistics reveal that for the same cause of action either more than one writ petition is pending or consequently from an order or a direction in a particular petition more than one contempt application or petition may also be pending, but in another Court. Rather than explain this phenomena of a confusing situation of duplicated proceedings, the Court will reproduce its orders in a certain writ petition. These orders were passed by this Court : "7.9.1995 Hon'ble Ravi S. Dhavan, J. Hon'ble A.B. Srivastava, J. Much too often repeated recourse to filing of cases on the same cause is causing the court much concern as it appears to bog down the Court in the pendency of cases with duplication and even beyond triplication, and at the expense of public justice. Every day this court is coming across situations where one case has given rise to pendency of two or three or more matters, on the same controversy. This is particularly so of the duplication and even beyond that, which is taking place as a consequence of the mis- structure of the civil contempt jurisdiction at the Allahabad High Court. It appears, that the Allahabad High Court is singular in its approach in dealing with civil contempt not with but away from the record. Insofar as civil contempt is concerned, there can be no contempt beyond the record as the power is inherent in the High Court under Article 215 which says that the High Court shall be a Court of Record and shall have all the powers of such a Court including the power to punish for contempt of itself. Before the rules in reference to civil contempt had been amended, this Court has examined the cause list stretching back to 1952, in reference to the Contempt of Courts Act, 1952, and found that at the Allahabad High Court there was no such thing as what the Registry calls 'Civil Contempt Judge'. The contempt, in reference to civil contempt, lay where the record was and it does not matter if this record was a writ petition civil revision, first appeal, first appeal from order, second appeal, or before a Single Judge, Division Bench, or, for that matter, even a Full Bench. In the matters before the Court there are four cases. In chronology the Court will refer to them in the reverse order, i.e., one filed last. In Writ Petition No. 4031 of 1994, Ghaziabad Development Authority, Ghaziabad v. State of U.P. and others, when it was presented before in Hon'ble Single Judges, the issue of notice has yet to be considered. This has led the Court to consider the other matters which are already on the list on what this petition may be about. This writ petition refers to the controversies which are no different than what had engaged the attention of the Court in Writ Petition No. 13270 of 1992, Sunil Kumar Tyagi v. State of U.P. and others, decided by the Hon'ble Chief Justice M.K. Mukherjee and the Hon'ble Mr. Justice Sudhir Narain, on 25th August, 1992. This writ petition gave rise to Civil Misc. Contempt Petition No. 232 of 1993, Sunil Kumar Tyagi v. Sri Pradeep Shukla and others. There were there party respondents. Notice was issues to one of them and even a charge had been framed. Notices to the other two with the contempt case pending is still open but has neither been issued nor dropped. The question arises whether this contempt case would be the subject matter of consideration beyond the jurisdiction of the writ Court which rendered the judgment on the writ petition, the contempt of which is complained of ? The issue of notice in contempt proceedings gave birth to another writ petition, in Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 29902 of 1993, Sunil Kumar Tyagi v. State of U.P. and others, in which pleadings have been exchanged; the notices were issued by the Hon'ble Ravi S. Dhavan and Hon'ble R.B. Mehrotra, JJ. The report bears out that the pleadings refer to the pendency of a contempt case and of a decision of a writ petition, i.e., Writ Petition No. 13270 of 1992, decided by the Bench of Hon'ble M.L. Mukherjee and Hon'ble Sudhir Narain, JJ. If this is not all, as a consequence of the contempt case, Writ Petition No. 4031 of 1994, Ghaziabad Development Authority, Ghaziabad v. The Board of Revenue, U.P., has been filed, notice were issued by the Hon'ble V.N. Khare and Hon'ble S.K. Jain, JJ. In this writ petitions there is a reference to the decision of an earlier writ petition No. 13270 of 1992 which was decided by the Division Bench, on 25th August, 1992. The question which occasions the Court to reflect on the situation is whether a party respondent in a writ petition could be unaware of contempt proceedings arising from the same writ petition. But, this phenomenon is taking place every day at the Allahabad High Court only because there is an aberration in the structure of the Civil contempt jurisdiction that it is considered away from the record. The other matter which concerns the Court is that whereas in other High Courts a notice of motion on a civil contempt proceeding rests on the premises that the party under an admittedly received notice is before the Court by virtue of the proceedings on record, but has yet to be chased through an alien methodology and agency in yet another Court; the Civil Contempt Court. And, be served for being brought before the Civil Contempt Judge. This inconsistency is compromising the position of the Allahabad High Court as a Superior Court of Record that while the contemner may be present before one Court, be may have to be served for service through a different condut, and the two records are recorded and kept separate. Further, if the court where the merits of the case is pending sends for the record which may be before the 'Civil Contempt Judge', this may be an embarrassing situation. Otherwise, aligning the civil contempt case with the record out of which the contempt arises, is the normalcy of the situation. To separate the records and proceed separately is the abnormality of it. The Rules of Court, encourage the abnormality. Thus, in this matter which faces the Court on the anomaly of the duplication and triplication of pendency of the cases before the High Court the Court must first consider which record it must see and reflect upon. Then, what is to be done with the record of the contempt case which is not before the Court. This concern of the court should be the concern equally of any petitioner who comes and alleges that a contempt has been committed, as also a party or a respondent who may be under notice on an allegation to answer a contempt. In a matter of Civil Contempt ought not the issue be in the forum where the record is ? Let learned Counsel, the petitioner and the respondents, State Counsel not excluded, address the Court on this aspect. Notice to the Advocate General has already been issued on this very aspect, in a number of cases which were connected as a bunch of the record of Writ Petition No. 23189 of 1984, Raj Kishore Yadav v. Principal, Kendriya Vidalaya, Bamrauli and others. The records of these will be before the Court. List on 21 September, 1995". [Writ Petition No. 29902 of 1993, Sunil Kumar Tyagi v. State of U.P. and others].
(2.) BUT , to be fair, it must be placed on record at the outset that this court was not the first to notice that in the management of the civil contempt cases filed at the High Court, instead of the cases following the routine or the normal course of seeing a decision, are being bogged down in pendency as the main case is being braked by a contempt petition where the same parties as in the main case have to be served all over again in a contempt case. This aspect delays the main case itself, and also the contempt case by unnecessarily serving parties who are otherwise present and aware of the proceedings in one division of the Court where the case is, but pretend that they have no notice in another where the contempt proceedings are pending. Thus, five years ago, an Hon'ble Chief Justice desired that a committee examine the matter of amending the rules which manage the contempt jurisdiction of the Allahabad High Court and suggest rules afresh, so that the jurisdiction, that is the contempt jurisdiction, is made simple, more effective and prompt. The orders of the Chief Justice constituting the committee are below :- "A Committee comprising Hon'ble S.D. Agarwala, J. and Hon'ble R.S. Dhavan, J., is constituted to examine the desirability of amending the Contempt of Court Rules and suggest, it so advised, the draft (new) Rules to make the jurisdiction simple, more effective and prompt. (Italic by Court for emphasis) Sd/- 15.8.91 (B.P. Javeen Reddy) CJ Hon'ble S.D. Agrawal, J. Hon'ble R.S. Dhavan, J. Submitted for kind information. Sd/- Registrar 16.8.91"
(3.) THE Committee, apparently, never took-off was beyond the circulation, so made by the registry, the file which constituted the committee went to sleep in the deep freeze. While the file sleeps effectively, in between one Hon'ble member left as Chief Justice to another State. The other (one of us) remains awaiting an exercise for the committee to move.;