The main legal point established in the judgment is the limitation on the appealability of a contempt Judge's order under Section 19 of the Contempt of Courts Act and Chapter VIII Rule 5 of the Rules of the Court.

JUDGMENT :

1. Heard Mr. O.P. Srivastava, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Mr. Virendra Kumar Dubey, learned counsel for the appellant and Mr. Ratnesh Chandra, learned counsel for the respondent no. 1.

2. A preliminary objection regarding maintainability of the special appeal under Chapter VIII Rule 5 of the Rules of the Court has been raised on the ground that the order impugned dated 05.01.2022 has been passed in the Contempt Application (Civil) No. 1261 of 2017; Shivam Das Chandani and 3 others vs. Prabhu N. Singh posted as Vice Chairman and others; whereby the learned Contempt Judge finding that the judgment and order dated 07.10.2015 passed by the Division Bench in Review Petition No. 7291(MB) of 2005 has been complied with, has dismissed the contempt application and consigned it to record.

3. The learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the appellants says that the order impugned is not a judgment dismissing the contempt application as no finding has been recorded regarding the compliance of the judgment and order dated 07.10.2015 passed by the writ Court. It has been submitted that the Hon'ble Contempt Judge has only mentioned the facts as argued by the learned counsel for the appellants and as argued by the learned counsel for the contemnors and thereafter observed that no cause of action survives and the contempt application was accordingly consigned to record. He has read out the relevant portion of the order dated 05.01.2022 which is being quoted hereinbelow:

"3. This contempt application has been filed for wilful disobedience of judgment and order dated 07.10.2015 passed by this Court in Review Petition No.7291 (M/B) of 2005.

4. Learned Senior counsel for the applicants submitted that the opposite party has deliberately not complied with the aforesaid order of this Hon'ble Court.

5. On the other hand, learned counsel for the opposite party has opposed the submission of learned counsel for the applicants and drawn attention of this Court towards compliance affidavit filed on 27.09.2018, wherein in paragraphs 5 to 8 it has been mentioned that compliance of the order dated 07.10.2015 has been made.

6. In view of the above, no cause of action survives in the present contempt application.

7. The contempt application is, accordingly, consigned to record."

It has been submitted that by referring to "cause of action" and by referring to the expression by the Court "consigned to record", the contempt Judge has exercised writ jurisdiction and not the contempt jurisdiction.

4. It has been submitted that a writ petition was filed for compensation for land acquired by the respondents which writ petition was initially dismissed. Later on, on the basis of the judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Pune Municipal Corporation and another vs. Harakchand Misirimal Solanki and others (2014) 3 SCC 183 a Review Petition was filed which was entertained and the writ petition eventually allowed and the acquisition proceedings relating to the plots of the appellants were held to have lapsed and a direction was issued that the respondents will make payment of compensation to the review-petitioners according to the provisions of the Act of 2013. Later on, a reference had been made to a Larger Bench of the Supreme Court to decide the question with regard to "whether if compensation is not actually paid to the tenure holder on acquisition of his land, Section 24 (2) of the New Act of 2013 would apply and it would mean that the entire acquisition would lapse?"

5. It has been submitted by the learned counsel for the appellants that when the compensation was not paid in accordance with the Act of 2013 a contempt application was filed, namely, Contempt Application (Civil) No. 1261 of 2017. A compliance affidavit was filed therein by the respondents wherein they stated that the compensation had been paid after constitution of a committee in this regard for the determination of such compensation and as per the decision taken in its meeting dated 14.