2006 Supreme(SC) 346

2006(5) Supreme 464
SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
(From City Civil Court, Bombay)
Mrs. Ruma Pal, B.N. Srikrishna and Dalveer Bhandari, JJ.
Rama Narang — Appellant
versus
Ramesh Narang & Anr. — Respondents
Contempt Petition (C) No. 148 of 2003
In
CP Nos. 265-267/1999 in CP No. 209/98
In
Civil Appeal No. 366 of 1998
Decided on 12-4-2006
Counsel for the Parties :
For the Appellant : H.N. Salve, Firoz Andhiyarujina, Sr. Advocates, Gopal Jain, R.N. Karanjawala, P.S. Baghel, Ms. Ritu Sharma, Mrs. Manik Karanjawala, S.V. Deshpande, Ms. Vandana Sharma Advocates.
For the Respondents : F.S. Nariman, Sr. Advocate, Subhash Sharma, A. Sibal, Mrs. Rakhi Ray, Ms. Bina Gupta, Ms. I. Barooah, Ms. Simanti Chakrabarti, Advocates.

IMPORTANT POINT
Fact that a decree is executable does not take away Court’s jurisdiction in contempt.

Headnote:Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 — Section 2(b) — Civil contempt — ”Wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of Court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to Court — No distinction is drawn between an order passed after an adjudication and an order passed by consent — Contempt petition alleging respondents 1 and 2 to have violated Court’s order disposing of Contempt Petition — Consent order was passed and suits were disposed of in terms of minutes of consent order — Respondents were alleged to have violated terms of the order — Preliminary objection as to maintainability of Contempt petition and plea that consent order did not contain an undertaking or injunction of Court — Question whether respondents could be called upon to answer proceedings in contempt for wilful disobedience to Court’s order even if no undertaking was given to Court by respondents in consent minutes? — Yes.

       Held : As we have earlier noted, the section itself provides that willful violation of any order or decree etc. would tantamount to contempt. A compromise decree is as much a decree as a decree passed on adjudication. It is not as has been wrongly held by the Calcutta High Court in Nisha Kanto Roy Chowdhury (supra) merely an agreement between the parties. In passing the decree by consent, the Court adds its mandate to the consent. A consent decree is composed of both a command and a contract. The Bombay High Courts view in Bajranglal Gangadhar Khemka (supra) correctly represents the law that a consent decree is a contract with the imprimatur of the Court. Imprimatur means authorized or approved. In other words by passing a decree in terms of a consent order the Court authorizes and approves the course of action consented to. Moreover, the provisions of Order 23 Rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure requires the Court to pass a decree in accordance with the consent terms only when it is proved to the satisfaction of the court that a suit has been adjusted wholly or in part by any lawful agreement.(Para 22)

       All decrees and orders are executable under the Code of Civil Procedure. Consent decrees or orders are of course also executable. But merely because an order or decree is executable, would not take away the Courts jurisdiction to deal with a matter under the Act provided the Court is satisfied that the violation of the order or decree is such, that if proved, it would warrant punishment under Section 13 of the Act on the ground that the contempt substantially interferes or tends substantially to interfere with the due course of justice. The decisions relied upon by the respondents themselves hold so as we shall subsequently see.(Para 23)

       In such circumstances it would neither be in consonance with the statute, judicial authority, principle or logic to draw any distinction between the willful violation of the terms of a consent decree and willful violation of a decree which is passed on adjudication. (Para 24)

       In the present case, the consent terms arrived at between the parties was incorporated in the orders passed by the Court on 12th December 2001 and 8th January 2002. The decree as drawn up shows that order dated 8th January, 2002 was to be "punctually observed and carried into execution by all concerned". A violation of the terms of the consent order would amount to a violation of the Courts orders dated 12th December 2001 and 8th January 2002 and, therefore be punishable under the first limb of Section 2(b) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. The question whether the respondents should not be held guilty of contempt because of any earlier confusion in the law reflected in the case of Babu Ram Gupta (supra), is a question which must be left for decision while disposing of the contempt petition on merits. It may be argued as an extenuating or mitigating factor once the respondents are held guilty of contempt. The submission does not pertain to the maintainability of the petition for contempt. The preliminary objection raised by the respondents regarding the non-maintainability of the petition for contempt is, for the reasons stated, dismissed. (Para 34)