Important Point
Power of punishment for contempt has not to be exercised lightly but should be exercised only to uphold the majesty of law and dignity of courts.

Judgment

Srinivasan, J.-This is a case of gross abuse of power by the High Court in its exercise of contempt jurisdiction. The High Court has not only misunderstood the scope of its own order but also been overzeal­ous in the purported enforcement of the same with the result it has passed a totally unwarranted order casting a stigma on the appellant in Civil Appeal No. 748 of 1997 who was then the Engineer-in-Chief, Department of Irrigation, Lucknow (U.P.). The two S.L.Ps. bracketed with the appeal are against the same order-one by the State Govern­ment and its officials and the other by the second respondent in the above appeal. For the sake of convenience, we will refer to the par­ties by their ranks in the Civil appeal and the petitioners in S.L.P. No. 21052 of 1996 as the State Government.

2. By order dated 7.10.1995 the State Govt. transferred the first respondent herein who was working as Assistant Engineer from Northern Division, Ganga Canal, Roorki to IIIrd Sub-Division, Dhampur, Irriga­tion Department, Moradabad. By the same order the second respondent who was working as Assistant Engineer at Dhampur was attached to Irrigation Department, Moradabad. The second respondent filed a writ petition in the High Court challenging the order of transfer. A Divi­sion Bench of the High Court dismissed the petition in limine on 16.10.1995 by the following order:

“Sri R.S. Yadav for petitioner and Sri Afsar for the respondents are heard. By the impugned order the petitioner is transferred from Dham­pur to Moradabad which is only 70 Kms. away from Dhampur. It is a transfer matter and no interference in such a matter is called for in the writ jurisdiction. The petition has no merit and is accordingly dismissed.”

3. On 18.10.1995 the President’s Rule was imposed in the State. Orders were issued by the Chief Secretary for reviewing various important orders passed by the previous Government between 1.10.95 and 18.10.95 including the orders of transfer of officials. Consequently the appel­lant passed an office order dated 31.10.1995 staying the order of transfer dated 7.10.1995. Accordingly the first respondent reported back at Northern Division, Ganga Canal Roorki on 11.11.1995. On 19.12.1995 the appellant issued fresh orders of transfer in accordance with Government order dated 12.12.1995 posting the first respondent at Eastern Ganga Canal Construction Circle, Haridwar. The first respond­ent challenged the same as well as the earlier order dated 31.10.1995 in Writ Petition No. 4078 of 1996. On 1.2.1996 the High Court passed an order in the following terms:

“It appears that this Annexure-2 was passed by the Engineer-in-Chief after respondent had failed to obtain any order in his favour from the High Court and the order of transfer was challenged by Respondent No. 5 in this Court. The Court did not grant any relief in his favour but soon thereafter he represented to the Engineer-in-Chief. The Engineer-in-Chief pass­ed the order staying the first order dated 7.10.1995, whereby the petitioner had already been functioning at Dhampur. We, therefore, direct that irrespective of any one of these annexures contained in Annexures 1, 2 and 3 the petitioner shall continue to function at Dhampur and Respondent No. 5 will continue on the post which he is holding.

The petitioner is satisfied to continue at Dhampur”

The first respondent filed an application for clarification in the last sentence of the first paragraph. That application was ordered on 14.2.96 by which the second respondent was to continue in the post which he was holding at Moradabad. It is stated that both the afore­said orders were passed without issuing notice to the second respond­ent though he was the fifth respondent in the writ petition.

4. On coming to know the orders, the second respondent filed an appli­cation for recalling the previous orders. When that application came up on 24.5.1996 the counsel for the first respondent could not be present on account of the illness and the Court