The judgment emphasizes the requirement for clear evidence of willful disobedience and the need to establish knowledge of the court's order before holding a party liable for contempt.

JUDGMENT

Pushpa V. Ganediwala, J. - The grievance of the petitioner in the instant Contempt Petition is the willful disobedience of the order of 'status quo' granted by this Court vide order dated 27/02/2017 passed in Writ Petition No. 1161/2017.

2. Briefly stated, the petitioner is a Manager of Touring Talkies, viz., New Laxmi Touring Talkies, situated at the Deoli weekly market compound, Deoli. The Chief Officer, Nagar Parishad, Deoli, issued a notice dated 25/01/2017 under Sections 180 and 181 of the Maharashtra Municipal Councils, Nagar Panchayats and Industrial Townships Act, 1965 (hereafter "the said Act", for short) with regard to demolition of the said Touring Talkies. In the said notice, three days time was given to the petitioner for removal of encroachment so that the respondent could smoothly carry its developmental and beautification work of market area.

3. The petitioner challenged the aforesaid notice in a Writ Petition bearing No.1161/2017 filed on 23/02/2017 submitting that the said notice was issued in violation of the procedure prescribed under Sections 180 and 181 of the said Act. On 27/02/2017, when the said Writ Petition got listed for the first time, this Court issued notice to the respondent, making it returnable after two weeks, and in the meantime, directed the parties to maintain 'status quo'.

It is the contention of the petitioner that as the copy of the aforesaid order was not made available to him on the same day he informed about the said order to the respondent officer by sending email on its official email address, i.e., municipalcouncildeoli@gmail.com. That on the very next day, i.e., on 28/02/2017, the petitioner submitted a copy of the said communication to the office of the respondent at about 9:00 am personally along with one Vijay Gomase. It is submitted that the respondent officer read the said order in the presence of the petitioner, and asked him to handover the same to the inward section of the Municipal Council.

It is further submitted that on 28/02/2017, when the petitioner got the copy of the aforesaid order from the official website of this High Court, he submitted the same to the respondent office at about 12:00 noon, and he had also forwarded a copy of the same to the Collector as well as the Superintendent of Police, Wardha, and therefore, it is the contention of the petitioner that despite the respondent officer had full knowledge about the aforesaid status quo order, he intentionally and deliberately violated the same.

4. Both the parties filed affidavits and counter affidavits against each other. They have also filed affidavits of their witnesses, and also brought on record the relevant documents.

5. The respondent filed his written submission on 17/03/2017 stating therein that the email address, i.e., municipalcouncildeoli@gmail.com, through which the petitioner claims to have sent email to him, is different than the email address appearing in the print copy, i.e., MCDeoli@gmail.com. That the correct email address of the respondent office is mcdeoli@gmail.com, and therefore, it cannot be said that the petitioner sent email on the correct email address.

With regard to the allegation that on 28/02/2017, the petitioner has submitted the copy of the communication to the respondent officer personally, he states that the process of removal of encroachment in Deoli town was to be undertaken from 28/02/2017, and the communication, pointing out that from 28/02/2017 at 9:00 am to 02/03/2017, the encroachment removal drive will be undertaken, was already issued to the Superintendent of Police, Wardha. It is further submitted that on 28/02/2017, at about 8:40 to 8:45 am, the entire staff of the respondent left the office and had been to the spot for removal of encroachment. There was police protection and other staff available and JCB machines were also available. That as per fixed schedule, the process of removal of encroachment was started at 9:00 am on 28/02/2017, and that the encroachment