A single Judge of the High Court has the jurisdiction to initiate proceedings for criminal contempt on its own motion.

S.S.SANDHAWALIA, J.

1. Whether a single Judge of the High Court is barred from initiating proceedings for criminal contempt in view of the provisions of Section 18 of the Contempt of Courts Act, is the question, which because of its significance and some intricacy has been formulated for determination by this large Bench on a reference made by a Full Bench.

2. It does appear a little surprising that despite the passage of well nigh nine years since the enactment of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 (hereinafter called the 1971 Act), the question aforesaid appears yet to have remained virtually res integra - barring a judgement of this Court, the correctness of which has itself been put in issue. The matter, therefore, deserves to be considered with some degree of elaboration - both on principle and in the light of the relevant statutory provisions.

3. In a matter so pristinely legal, the facts would obviously pale into relative insignificance. Nevertheless the matrix thereof giving rise to the salient question, and the mode and manner in which it has come before this Bench deserves to be recounted albeit briefly.

4. One Hazi Phuman and others preferred a habeas corpus petition in this Court in which notice was issued to the respondents to produce the detenu and further a Warrant Officer was appointed to go and search for them in the premises of the police station Maler Kotla where they were alleged to have been unlawfully detained. In the course of the proceedings the Warrant Officer appointed by the Court was obstructed in the performance of his duties lawfully enjoined upon him and when the matter came up before my learned brother Bains, J. sitting singly, he directed the issue of a notice of criminal contempt against the present respondents - ASI Kasturi Lal, H.C. Daya Singh, H.C. Hartalab Singh, S.H.O. Gurnam Singh and A.S.I. Bachan Singh. On appearing before the Court, a preliminary objection at once was raised on their behalf that this notice of contempt could not be issued by the learned single Judge as the allegations therein were in the nature of criminal contempt and it was contended that because of the provisions of Section 18 of the Act, even the initiation of proceedings could only be done by a Division Bench and not by a single Bench. Pointedly noticing that in the case on hand, the notice for contempt had been issued by the Court suo motu, Bains, J. referred the matter for determination by a larger Bench vide his reference order dated October 5, 1978. The Division Bench before which the case came to be placed and to which I was party, however, felt that the meaningful issue raised in the case deserves an authoritative decision and accordingly the case was directed to be placed before a Full Bench by the reference order dated March 6, 1979. Thereby notices were also directed to be issued to the Attorney General of India and also the Advocates-General of the two States.

5. At the hearing before the Full Bench, there was an unusual unanimity on the crucial point in so far as both the learned Advocates-General of Haryana and the learned Additional Advocate-General, Punjab, took up the stand that the single Judge of the High Court had full jurisdiction to at-least issue a notice of criminal contempt to the contemners suo motu and the provisions of the Act would not in any way impede the exercise of this power. Even the learned counsel for the respondents, Dr. Tir, as already noticed was rather lukewarm in opposing this stand. However, a sizable hurdle in accepting the said view came to be noticed in the form of an unreported Full Bench judgement of this Court in Criminal Original No. 79 of 1972 Chander Rant V/s. Tek Chand, wherein, it had been held in unequivocal terms that a single Judge of the High Court had no jurisdiction to go into the matter at any stage of the proceedings in view of the mandatory provisions of Section 18 of the 1971 Act. It was this factor which inevitably necessitated the constitution