The High Court's power to punish for contempt of court is limited to cases of wilful disobedience of its orders. The Court cannot, in a contempt proceeding, pass an order that materially adds to or alters the order for alleged disobedience of which its contempt jurisdiction was invoked.

M.K. Mukherjee, J.

1. THE Secretary of the Panchavaya Junior High School ('School' for short), under the Police Station of Raigunj, in the district of West Dinajpur and the guardians of five students of the School jointly filed a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India before a learned Judge of this Court alleging that the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education ('Board' for short) and the Director of Secondary Education, Government of West Bengal ('Director' for short) were illegally and unjustly withholding recognition of their School. By an order dated May 5, 1989, the learned Judge disposed of the said petition with the following directions :-

"THE Board is directed to go into the question of granting of recognition to the petitioner's school, Panchavaya Junior High School, Police Station-Raigunj, District-West Dinajpur. THE Director of Secondary Education is directed to forward all the records along with the report to the Board within four weeks from date and the Board must pass the order within four weeks thereafter."

2. ALLEGING wilful disobedience of and non-compliance with the said order, the writ petitioners filed an application before the learned Judge for initiating a proceeding for contempt against the President and the Secretary of the Board and the Director. On that application, a Rule Nisi, being Civil Rule No. 9404(W) of 1989 was issued and it was disposed of by the learned Judge by his judgment and order-dated August 311, 1990, the operative part of which reads as follows :-

"the Board is directed to grant unequivocal recognition of the School without fail within a fortnight from date. If the consequence of the grant of recognition is to give financial assistance, such financial assistance must be given without fail. The costs of this application, assessed at two hundred gold mohurs must be paid to the writ petitioners by the respondents concerned within a fortnight from the date hereof."

The above order is under challenge in the instant appeal, filed by the President and Secretary of the Board.

3. A cursory glance at the preamble to the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 ('Act' for short) and the provisions thereof makes it abundantly clear that the Act has been brought in the statute book to define and limit the powers of certain Courts, including the High Courts, to punish for Contempt of Courts and it has laid down the procedure for exercise of such powers. 'Contempt of Court' has been defined under section 2(a) of the Act to mean 'Civil Contempt' or 'Criminal Contempt' and 'Civil Contempt' has been defined under section 2(b) of the Act to mean wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, Writ or other process of a Court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a Court. If, therefore, it is alleged before the High Court that a person has wilfully violated its order, it can invoke its jurisdiction under the Act to enquire whether the allegation is true or not and if found true, it can punish the offenders for having committed 'Civil Contempt' and if need be, can pass consequential orders for enforcement and execution of the order as the case may be, for violation of which, the proceeding for contempt was initiated. In other words, while exercising its powers under the Act in respect of Civil Contempt, the Court's enquiry is limited to the question whether its order has been wilfully disobeyed or not. While exercising its powers under the Act, it is therefore not open to the Court to pass an order, which will materially add to or alter the order for alleged disobedience of which its contempt jurisdiction was invoked.

4. WHEN judged in the context of the above principles, there is no escape from the conclusion that the learned Judge went beyond his jurisdiction in passing the order under appeal. By the order disposing of the writ petition, the learned Judge had directed the Board to go into the 'question of grant of recognition' and to pass an order. In compliance with the