Point of Law: Jurisdiction under the Contempt of Courts Act is not to be invoked unless the Court finds that the act on the part of the authority is deliberate and in willful disobedience of the order of this Court. Unless a real and serious prejudice is shown, which can be regarded as a substantial interference with the due course of justice, this jurisdiction would not be available.

ORDER :

SONIA GOKANI, J.

1. The applicant, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd., is a Company registered under the Companies Act, 1956. It is engaged in the activity of exploration and development / production of hydrocarbons, i.e. oil and gas, at different places throughout the country.

2. The facts in brief leading to the filing of the present application for contempt under the Contempt of Courts Act are as follows:-

For exploration of hydrocarbons, the applicant had entered into a contract with M/s. Techno Exports, Moscow on 04.12.1986 for conducting seismic survey in North Cambay and Cambay Basins. The Contractor had imported equipments for the said work in 16 different consignments, 5 of which were received in October 1986 and the remaining 11 were received in February-March 1987. The goods under the 16 consignments were provisionally cleared against ITC Bonds and the customs duty was paid on merit rates. The Essentiality Certificate regarding payment of customs duty was issued and based upon it, the applicant had claimed refund of the excess amount of duty. Various rounds of litigation eventually led to preferring an appeal being Appeal No.570/2013 whereby, the Commissioner, Customs Department directed finalization of all the 16 Bills of Entry vide order dated 21.08.2013. The said order had attained finality as it had remained unchallenged. Despite the above order, the Customs authority did not finalize the refund and continued to demand documents till 23.01.2017 when a final assessment order on the Bills of Entries came to be passed. However, the refund claim was not processed. The applicant, therefore, filed the captioned petition claiming refund of Rs.5,51,82,641.08 along with interest thereon. Pending the petition, on 21.11.2019, various information had been sought for and the matter was posted on 02.12.2019.

2.1 It is the say of the applicant that on 29.11.2019, the amount of refund was directed to be credited to the Consumer Welfare Fund under Section 27(2) of the Customs Act, 1962 (for short, “the Act”) but the claim for interest was rejected. This, according to the applicant, was without any valid or legal basis. In the pending petition, after making an amendment, challenge was made to the said order also and eventually, the Court allowed the petition by issuing certain directions vide order dated 20.02.2020 passed in Special Civil Application No.19096 of 2018.

2.2 In the present application, the applicant has raised the grievance that a bare perusal of the order dated 20.02.2020 passed by this Court would indicate that this Court had not only not set aside the order directing credit of the refund amount but grant of refund to the Consumer Welfare Fund, it, had also remanded the matter to the authority for taking appropriate decision on the aspect of payment of interest on the refund amount.

2.3 It is the say of the applicant that the respondent had fixed the hearing on the interest aspect through the medium of Video Conference and the arguments were also heard on the said aspect. However, to the shock of the applicant, in a deliberate and willful disobedience, the respondent authority re-examined the aspect of enrichment and directed the amount of refund to be credited to the Consumer Welfare Fund under Section 27(2) of the Act by order dated 04.11.2020. According to the applicant, the order dated 04.11.2020 exhibits a scant regard for the order passed by this Court dated 20.02.2020 and therefore, it has to be construed as a willful and deliberate contempt. It is emphatically urged that the respondent authority had set aside the order dated 29.11.2019 directing credit of the amount to the Consumer Welfare Fund, which is indicative of the fact that the applicant was entitled to refund and that the aspect of interest was to be examined, which the said authority has misconstrued and therefore, for this willful disobedience, the present application is preferred under the Contempt of Courts Act with the following prayers:-

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