- (1.) THIS is an application by Thakur Bhawani Singh praying that Shri Sugan Chandra, Sub-Divisional Officer, Sikar, should be dealt with for contempt of court.
(2.) THE circumstances, under which the present application was made, are these. THE applicant is a Jagirdar, and holds an estate in Tehsil Danta Ramgarh. He presented an application under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India against the State of Rajasthan, the Sub-Divisional Officer, Sikar, and the Tehsildar, Danta Ramgarh. By this application, he challenged the validity of the Rajasthan Produce Rents Regulating Act. (No. XV of 1951) as amended by the Rajasthan Produce Rents Regulating (Amendment) Act, 1952 (No. XIV of 1952 ). He also prayed for a writ of mandamus directing the opposite parties not to give effect to these Acts. He further prayed for an interim order praying that the status quo be maintained, and the opposite parties, including the Sub-Divisional Officer, Sikar, be restrained from interfering in the matter. On the 2nd of June, 1952, an order was obtained by the applicant in the following terms: - "in the meantime the respondents No. 2 and 3 are restrained from enforcing their orders and preserving the status quo. '" THE applicant left for his village on the 2nd of June, 1952, and reached there the same night. On the morning of the 3rd June, 1952 Shri Sugan Chandra opposite party, allowed the tenants to remove the agricultural produce which was on the threshing-floor. THEreupon, the applicant made an application at about 8 A. M. with an affidavit sworn by himself to the effect that a writ petition had been presented by him before the High Court, and the High Court had passed an interim order restraining the Sub-Divisional Officer, Sikar, from interfering in respect of produce rents during the pendency of the writ petition. THE applicant also said that he undertook to produce a copy of the order within 24 hours. But the Sub-Divisional Officer did not pay any heed to the application or the affidavit filed by the applicant, and refused to grant him any adjournment for producing a copy of the order, and allowed the tenants to take away the crops, and thus committed contempt of the order of this Court. THE applicant, therefore, prayed that the opposite party should be dealt with for such contempt. The reply of the opposite party is that he never contemplated disobeying the orders of this Court, or committing contempt of its authority. He further submits that he was not satisfied from the material placed at his disposal that this Court had in fact passed any order of stay. He, therefore, did not take into account the application and affidavit filed by the applicant, and proceeded to perform his duty as expected of him. He also points out that there is some mis-statement of facts in the application, and that the affidavit and the application were not presented to him at 8 A. M. , but after 11 A. M. , when most of the work had been done. There is one main point which requires decision in this case, namely, whether the opposite party dis-obeyed the order of this Court after having come to know of it. For after all if the order in question has not been communicated to the person charged with contempt of court or, at any rate, he has no sufficient reason to believe that such an order has been passed, it cannot be said that in doing something, which may be against the terms of the order of this Court but which is not known to him, he committed contempt of court. In this connection reference may be made to Ex parte Langley (1) ( (1879-80) 13 Chancery Division 110. ). There a certain injunction had been passed, and information had been given to the sheriffs officer by telegram. The sheriffs officer, however, proceeded with his work, inspite of the telegram that he had received. He was then hauled up for contempt of Court, and the question arose whether he had sufficient notice of the order. The first court decided against him. There was then an appeal, which was allowed, and it was held that he had not sufficient notice. It was held that - "sufficient notice of the granting of an injunction may be given by telegram; but, if it is sought to commit for contempt a person who, after receiving such a notice, disregards' it, the Court must decide upon the particular facts whether he had in fact notice of the injunction, and it is the duty of those who ask for the committal to prove this beyond reasonable doubt. A person who has violated an injunction will not be committed for contempt when he swears that, though he had received notice of it by telegram, he bona fide believed that no injunction had been granted, and the circumstances shew that such a belief was not unreasonable. " James, L. , J. further pointed out that when parties, who obtained an injunction,wished to communicate it by telegram, there was a very obvious mode by which they could prevent difficulties like this by the solicitor's telegraphing not to the sheriff's officer but to some solicitor to go and give notice of the order to the sheriff's officer. The question then, whether notice has been actually received by the person apparently disobeying an order of this Court, is to be decided on the facts of each case, though there may be certain minimum requirements which, if they are fulfilled, may lead this Court to come to the conclusion that the person concerned had notice of the order. In the present case, all that we have is that the applicant himself presented an application supported by an affidavit to the effect that an order of stay had been passed. It is remarkable that he did not take any letter from the counsel to show that the counsel had presented an application for stay, and that a stay order had been passed in the presence of the counsel. The opposite party's explanation is that he had already stayed his hands on the 2nd of June, 1952. and given time to the applicant's son to produce the stay order, if any, by 7 A. M. on the 3rd June. No stay order was, however, produced by that time and even the application and the affidavit were presented before him at 11 A. M. Further, there was no letter of any counsel accompanying the application or affidavit in support of what the applicant said. Under these circumstances, the officer felt very doubtful of any stay order having been passed, and was not prepared to act as if it had been passed. We may point out that the officer cannot be said to be unjustified if he did not proceed to act on what he was told by a party to have happened in the Court. As has been pointed out in Vemuri Subhayya vs. Bayya Nagramthamma and others (2) (A. I. R. (32) 1945 Mad. 391.), (though the point there was different), it would lead to very inconvenient and startling results, if an officer doing his duty is to stay his hands immediately a party who is naturally the most interested person, comes forward and tells him either orally or by an application supported by an affidavit that a stay order has been passed. We feel that where it is not possible for parties to obtain a copy of the stay order, the l|east that we would require before we can consider that an officer carrying out his duty should stay his hands is that the party should inform him by affidavit of some person, who was present when the order was passed, to the effect that the stay order had been passed, and support that with a letter or statement from the counsel, in whose presence the stay order was passed by the Court. It is necessary that there should be some responsible person, who would take the responsibility of informing the person against whom the stay order has been issued that such an order has been passed. We do not think that a party can be considered to be such a responsible person, and at least there should be a letter or statement from the counsel informing the officer that a stay order has been passed. We do not mean by this that if there is less material than this before an officer, he should not stay the proceedings. All that we. mean to say is that this is the minimum that we shall require, if the party wants us to take contempt of court proceedings against the officer for disobedience of the order of this Court. It is always open to the officer concerned, if he is prepared to trust the party, to stay his proceedings ; but if he really feels that he cannot trust merely the word of the party and that there should be something more than the mere word of the party, we are not prepared to say that in such circumstances, if the officer distrusting the word of the party carries on with his duty, he commits contempt of the. order of this Court. We may briefly review certain cases, which have been cited at the bar, and which we consider, more or less, support the conclusion which we have indicated above. In Babu Ratnessari Per had Narayan Singh and another vs. Empress (1) ( (1897-98) II Calcutta Weekly Notes, 498.), a question arose whether a Magistrate should have stayed the proceedings when informed of an order of stay passed by the High Court. In that case also, a copy of the order had not been supplied to the Magistrate that the stay order had been received and also submitted a telegram which he had received from the Vakil in the High Court informing him of the issue of the stay order. It was held that in these circumstances the Magistrate should have stayed his hands. The mode adopted in this case is in consonance with what James, L. J. , laid down in Ex parte Langley (2) ( (1879-80) 13 Chancery Division 110. ). It is obvious that there was a telegram from a responsible parson, namely, the Vakil, in whose presence the order had been passed in the High Court, and the counsel appearing for the accused before the Magistrate took the responsibility of producing that telegram, and thus endorsing its genuineness The next case is In the matter of Surya Narain Singh and others (3) ( (1900-1901) Calcutta Weekly Notei, 110. ). In that case, the information was conveyed to the Magistrate by a mukhtar of the accused, and the mukhtar had received a telegram from one of the accused informing him of the stay. The facts in this case are a little weaker than the earlier case, because the telegram came not from the Vakil in the High Court but from the accused. But there is the circumstance that the mukhtar, who appeared before the Magistrate, took the responsibility of producing that telegram, and thus in a sense endorsing its genuineness. The next case is Sati Nath Sikdar vs. Ratanmani Naskar (4) (XIVI. C. 808.) In that case also the information was supplied to the Munsif about the stay order passed by the High Court through an application supported by an affidavit and a letter written by his Vakil in the High Court, who had obtained the stay order. This, if we may say so with respect, is the minimum which we would expect the party to do, if he expects us to take contempt of court proceedings for disobedience of the stay order. The next case on which reliance has been placed by learned counsel for the applicant is In Re Bryant (5) ( (1876-7) 4 CD. 98. ). In that case, the sheriff's officer had been informed by the solicitor that he had filed a liquidation petition. Later a telegram was sent to him that the Court of Bankrupcy had made an order restraining further proceedings. Inspite of that, the sheriff's officer and the auctioneer carried out the sale. They were thereupon hauled up for contempt. This case was decided by Bacon, C. J. , who was also the first court in Ex parte Langley (1) ( (1879-80) 13 C. D. 110. ). The view taken by Bacon, C. J. in this case was the same as he took in Ex parte Langley (1), and that view was set aside by the Court of Appeal. This case, therefore, cannot be treated as an authority, and the minimum requirements are those which we have already set out, and which are supported by the observations of James. L. , J. , in Ex parte Langley (1 ). In Ponnuswami Aiyar and others vs. K. Ganapthi Aiyar (2) (A. I. R. 1924 Mad. 393.), an order of stay had been passed, and the question arose whether the Magistrate was guilty of contempt in having disobeyed that order. It was held that notice of an order could be given otherwise than by an official communication of it. It was found in that case that the Vakil in the Court had sent a telegram to the Magistrate informing him of the stay order. Thereafter an application supported by an affidavit of a person who had been instructing the Vakil in the High Court was also presented. It was held that this was sufficient information to the Magistrate, that the stay order had been passed. Here again, it may be noticed that there was a telegram from the counsel appearing in the High Court telling the Magistrate that stay order had been passed. But, though the court held that there was communication to the Magistrate, it came to the conclusion that he had not committed contempt of court because there was no wilful disobedience of the order. A review of these authorities leads to the conclusion that if an officer or a person against whom a stay order or some order of that nature is passed by a court is to be made liable for contempt of court, it is the duty of the party intending to make him liable to satisfy the court that the officer or the person concerned had information of the order. This question will depend generally on the facts of each case. But the mere fact that a party informs an officer or the person concerned of the order would not, in our opinion, be generally enough, and there must, at any rate, be some information from the counsel appearing in the court passing the order that; the stay order had been passed in his presence. In the case before us there is only the information given by the party. Under these circumstances, if the Magistrate thought that information was not reliable, and proceeded to act as if the order of stay had not been passed, it cannot be said that he committed contempt of court. He may have bona fide believed that no order of stay had been passed. We, therefore, see no reason for taking action against the Sub-Divisional Officer for contempt of court. In the circumstances of the case, we order the parties to bear their own costs, for we feel that nothing serious could have happened if the Sub-Divisional Officer-had stayed his hands for 24 hours, as desired by the party. . ;