The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement of obtaining the consent of the Advocate General for initiating contempt proceedings and the need to strictly adhere to the law of contempt.

( 1. ) PREAMBLE : I. Nature of Court proceedings : An "open court" means a court to which the public have a right to be admitted. This term may mean either a court which has been formally convened and declared open for the transaction of its proper judicial business, or a court which is freely open to spectators. - Black's Law Dictionary (6th Edn., 1990, p. 1091)

( 2. ) IN my considered view an "open court" is a court to which general public has a right to be admitted and access to the court is granted to all the persons desirous of entering the court to observe the conduct of the judicial proceedings....." -Dr. Justice M. K. Sharma in Mohd. Shahabuddin v. State of Bihar (2010) 4 SCC 653 : (2010 AIR SCW 3211). II. What is Contempt:

Section 2 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 reads as follows :

2. Definitions.- In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,- (a) "contempt of Court" means civil contempt or criminal contempt; (b) "civil contempt" means 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; (c) "criminal contempt" means the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which- (i) scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any Court, or (ii) preju Mohd. Shahabuddin v. State of Bihardices, or interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course of any judicial proceeding; or (iii) interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner;" III. The purpose of contempt power :

( 3. ) PROCEEDINGS for contempt are initiated in Court for the purpose of protecting either the Court itself or the party concerned and to use it for any other purpose would constitute an abuse of the process of the Court. It is of the utmost importance therefore that before a party can seek protection from the Court it should show that it really needs such protection. -Rajendra Kumar v. Shafiq Ahmad, AIR 1957 All 37 (J)." IV. The power of the High Court to punish for contempt:

( 4. ) SECTION 22 of the Contempt of Courts Act says that the provisions of this Act shall be in addition to and not in derogation of, the provisions of any other law relating to contempt of Courts. The power of a High Court to institute proceedings for contempt and punish where necessary is a special jurisdiction which is inherent in all Courts of Record. The Court of Record has the power of summarily punishing for contempt. Article 215 of the Constitution of India states that every High Court shall be a Court of record and shall have all the powers of such a Court including the power of punish for contempt of itself......the question before us is whether even though the Circular referred to may not come under the definition 'civil contempt' does the act of the fifth respondent in taking the photograph of the proceedings will amount to contempt of Court. As observed by the Supreme Court in Board of Revenue v. U.P., AIR 1981 SC 723 : (1981 Crl LJ 283), "Arts.129 and 215 preserve all the powers of the Supreme Court and the High Court, respectively, as a Court of Record which include the power to punish the contempt of itself. There are no curbs on the power of the High Court to punish for contempt of itself except those contained in the Contempt of Courts Act. Arts. 129 and 215 do not define as to what constitutes contempt of Court. Parliament has, by virtue of the Entries 77 and 14 in List I and List III respectively of the Seventh Schedule, power to define and limit the powers of the Courts in punishing contempt of Court and to regulate their procedure in relation thereto. Indeed, this is what is stated in the preamble of the Act of 1971". -R. Balakrishna Pillai v. K. P. Balachandran and others [2001 Crl.L.J. 846] (Kerala Hct - DB) V. Taking pho