The provisions of Article 226(3) of the Constitution are mandatory and that the interim order had automatically vacated after 14 days from the date of filing the application.

B. S. CHAUHAN, J.

( 1 ) THIS contempt petition was heard along with the main writ petition No. 198/94 as being linked with the said writ petition. The opposite party No. 1 had filed an F. I. R. against petitioners on 29-3-1992 and on her request, the Deputy Secretary, Home, passed an order dated 14-10-1993 to transfer the investigation from one officer to another. However, the said order was not given effect to and the police report was filed before the competent Court, by the Investigation Officer, who had been restrained to investigate vide order dated 14-10-93. However, the same was rejected by the Court vide order dated 26-10-1993 which directed another officer to investigate the case as per earlier order dated 14-10-1993. Order dated 26-10-1993 was also not complied with. The competent criminal Court issued proceedings for contempt vide order dated 30-3-1994. Applicants filed writ petition No. 198/1994 wherein by way of passing an interim order dated 10-5-1994 this Court stayed operation of orders dated 14-10-1993, 26-10-1993 and 30-3-1994 till further orders.

( 2 ) THE non-petitioner No. 1 filed another F. I. R. on 30-3-1995 as contained in Annexure R1/2 to this petition. Newspapers, namely, "teesra Prahar" and " Punjab Kesri" whereof non-petitioners Nos. 4 and 5 are the editors, published the news about lodging of the said F. I. R. on 4-4-1995. The instant contempt petition has been filed on the basis that the said F. I. R. has been lodged to circumvent the interim order dated 10-5-1994 and it amounts to interference with the administration of justice and, relief sought in this petition is that the proceedings be quashed and investigation be stayed.

( 3 ) IN reply to this petition, the non-applicants Nos. 4 and 5 i. e. Sri Raj Kumar Vyas and Sri Vijay Kumar, came forward with a plain and simple defence that they are the editors of newspapers and their correspondents had sent them the news after verifying it from the police station and they published it in good faith. They were not aware of the earlier proceedings and the Court order. The news was published in a routine manner and no ulterior motive can be attributed to them and there was no wilful defiance of any order of the Court by them. They also stated that had they been aware of earlier Court proceedings, they could not have published the said news and they also tendered their absolute and unconditional apology.

( 4 ) NON-APPLICANT No. 1 filed a detailed reply, taking two defences; Firstly, that she had filed an application under clause (3) of Article 226 of the Constitution on 6-4-1995 after serving copy of the same on the counsel for the applicants and the order dated 10-5-1994 has not been extended after 6-4-1995, the interim order passed earlier ceased to be effective after a lapse of 14 days from the date of filing the application on 6-4-1995. Secondly, the new F. I. R. was regarding fabrication of the photograph and circulating the same for the purpose of defaming her and prejudicing her case. As the F. I. R. was based on completely new facts/ allegations it has nothing to do with the charges/allegations, in regard of which proceedings are pending in this Court.

( 5 ) NON-APPLICANT No. 3 filed the reply stating that on receiving the complaint on 29-3-1995, S. H. O. made on endorsement on the report that a criminal case involving the same facts and already been investigated and no inquiry/investigation was made on the said report. Thus, question of violation of the order dated 10-5-94 does not arise.

( 6 ) TAKING into consideration the defence adopted by non-applicants Nos. 4 and 5, we are of the considered opinion that applicants could not make any good ground for punishing the said non-applicants Nos. 4 and 5 for publishing the news in their newspapers as there is no material on record to establish that they had done it in wilful defiance of any order of this Court. Moreover, it has neither been alleged nor pleaded that the said non-applicants