Compliance with court orders and interpretation of orders should be pursued through new litigation, not contempt petitions.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Petition filed under Section 11 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 to punish the respondent for willful disobedience and violation of the order dated 18.04.2017 in W.P.No.14999 of 2012.)

1. The contempt petition has been filed alleging non-compliance of the direction given in the writ petition, which is quoted hereunder:

"5. We, therefore, dispose of the present writ petition also, with a direction for consideration of the case of the writ petitioner for sanction of pension, as soon as appropriate measures are taken by the State in pursuance to our judgment rendered on 5th April 2017 in W.P.No.30277 of 2016."

2. Learned counsel appearing for the contemnors 2 and 3 submits that the State Government, in the year 2021 itself, has decided the issue by not accepting the prayer made by the petitioner. A copy of the order passed on 17.09.2021 has been placed on record. Accordingly, pursuant to the directions given in paragraph 5 of the order, the case of the petitioner has been considered.

3. In view of the above, we do not find any case of noncompliance of the order.

4. However, learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the case of the petitioner for the grant of pension has not been considered by giving proper interpretation of the order dated 05.04.2017 made in WP.No.30277 of 2016.

5. We have considered the above aspect and find that if an order is passed in compliance of the order affecting the right of the petitioner, it can give rise only to a new litigation, but cannot be opened in a contempt petition. The said view is supported by the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of in the case of J.S. Parihar v. Ganpat Duggar, (1996) 6 SCC 291. The relevant paragraph of the said judgment reads as under:

"6. The question then is whether the Division Bench was right in setting aside the direction issued by the learned Single Judge to redraw the seniority list. It is contended by Mr S.K. Jain, the learned counsel appearing for the appellant, that unless the learned Judge goes into the correctness of the decision taken by the Government in preparation of the seniority list in the light of the law laid down by three Benches, the learned Judge cannot come to a conclusion whether or not the respondent had wilfully or deliberately disobeyed the orders of the Court as defined under Section 2(b) of the Act. Therefore, the learned Single Judge of the High Court necessarily has to go into the merits of that question. We do not find that the contention is well founded. It is seen that, admittedly, the respondents had prepared the seniority list on 2-7-1991. Subsequently promotions came to be made. The question is whether seniority list is open to review in the contempt proceedings to find out whether it is in conformity with the directions issued by the earlier Benches. It is seen that once there is an order passed by the Government on the basis of the directions issued by the court, there arises a fresh cause of action to seek redressal in an appropriate forum. The preparation of the seniority list may be wrong or may be right or may or may not be in conformity with the directions. But that would be a fresh cause of action for the aggrieved party to avail of the opportunity of judicial review. But that cannot be considered to be the wilful violation of the order. After reexercising the judicial review in contempt proceedings, a fresh direction by the learned Single Judge cannot be given to redraw the seniority list. In other words, the learned Judge was exercising the jurisdiction to consider the matter on merits in the contempt proceedings. It would not be permissible under Section 12 of the Act. Therefore, the Division Bench has exercised the power under Section 18 of the Rajasthan High Court Ordinance being a judgment or order of the Single Judge; the Division Bench corrected the mistake committed by the learned Single Judge. Therefore, it may not be necessary for the State to file an appeal in this Court against the judgme