An appeal lies against an order passed by the High Court in exercise of its jurisdiction to punish for contempt under Section 19(1) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.

( 1 ) THIS appeal is directed against a judgment and order dated 10th February, 1995 passed by a learned Single Judge of this Court in Civil No. 6388 (W) of 1994,whereby and whereunder the said learned Judge directed the appellant to pay the arrears of salaries of the writ-petitioner respondent for the period from October, 1994 till date on the basis that he has been discharging his duties as senior Supervisor within a week therefrom. It was further directed that for the period June, 1994 till date all salaries in accordance with the applicable rules framed with regard to Hooghly District Central Co-operative Bank Limited shall be paid within a fortnight therefrom.

( 2 ) THE fact of the matter lies in a very narrow compass.

( 3 ) THE respondent Anoj Kumar Roy (hereinafter REFERRED TO as 'the writ-petitioner') filed a writ application in this Court questioning the order of transfer dated 23-5-1994 issued by the appellant bank, whereby and whereunder he was transferred from Head Office Loan Section to the post of senior supervisor. Allegedly, on or about 4-6-94, he was released from loan Section and thereafter the aforementioned writ application was filed on 27-6-94. In the said writ application an interim order was passed. A question arose as to whether the writ-petitioner having been released prior to filing of the said writ application the interim order passed by the writ Court was complied with or not. However, in the meanwhile another interim order was passed whereby and whereunder the writ-petitioner was asked to join the transferred post. Pursuant to or in furtherance of the said order, the writ-petitioner purported to have joined and submitted his joining report on 8-10-94 as contained in Annexure A/1 to the contempt application; wherein after his signature he put his designation as 'in charge, Loan Section'. As the said joining report was allegedly not accepted, a contempt application was filed by the writ-petitioner. However, the writ-petitioner purported to have submitted his joining report on 8-10-94 which was not accepted, whereafter the writ petitioner filed the contempt application. Another contempt application was also filed by the appellant for not submitting his joining report in terms of the interim order passed by the learned trial judge dated 3rd October, 1995. Both the aforementioned contempt applications were heard together and by reason of the impugned order, the learned Trial Judge disposed of the contempt applications in the manner as stated hereinbefore as keeping in view the controversy raised in the said writ application as to whether the writ-petitioner was entitled to submit his joining report as in charge loan Section; Mr. Sitaram Bhattacharjee, learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the writ petitioner, submitted that the said words may be treated as cancelled.

( 4 ) MR. B. R. Bhattacharyya, learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant, has raised a short question in this appeal. The learned Counsel submits that there exists a controversy as to whether till 8-10-94, the writ-petitioner at all worked or not. He further submits that there exists a controversy as to whether even after 8-10-94 he had worked lawfully so as to entitle him to receive the salary. The learned Counsel, however, submits that from the date of passing of the said order, namely 10-2-95, the writ-petitioner would be entitled to salary which is payable to him in accordance with law. According to the learned Counsel, the learned Trial Judge has acted beyond jurisdiction in passing the impugned order without considering the said contentions raised on behalf of the appellant and thus must be held to have granted a relief, which was beyond the scope and purview of the interim order which could be passed by the learned Trial Judge in law. Reliance in this connection; has been placed on Satyabrata Biswas v. Kalyan Kumar Kisku, reported in (1994) 2 SCC 266 : (AIR 1994 SC 1837), and Pallav Goswami v. Ava Rani