Willful disobedience of a court order, even in the absence of mens rea, constitutes contempt under Section 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.

JUDGMENT :

1. Heard Ms. Radhika Singh, learned counsel for applicant and Sri Manish Mishra, learned counsel for opposite parties.

2. The present contempt application under Section 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 has been filed alleging willful and deliberate disobedience of judgment and order dated 31.03.2015 passed by a Division Bench of this Court in Writ Petition No.9525 (M/B) of 2013, whereby following direction was issued:

"A perusal of Annexure SA-3 annexed with the supplementary affidavit dated 31.3.2015 shows that in response to the notice dated 3.11.2014, the petitioner preferred written objection to the Assessing Officer bringing to his notice the pendency of the aforesaid writ petition and also apprising him that Section 127 was not even remotely attracted. Therefore, it was incumbent upon the opposite party No.2 to have waited for the outcome of the writ petition, but he proceeded with the matter which shows prejudicial and impartial attitude of the authority. It may be noted that transparency and fairness is the essence of the state action. Therefore, the authorities are expected to proceed in disciplined manner without creating any doubt in the mind of the asseessees. As averred above, it was the duty of the Assessing Officer to have referred the question of jurisdiction to the Chief Commissioner or the Commissioner as the case may be under sub-section (2) of Section 124 of the Act and not doing so, this vitiated the further proceedings.

Here, there is complete departure from the settled procedure. It comes out from the record that when the petitioner refused to submit to the jurisdiction of the said Assessing Officer at Lucknow, the authority/respondent No.2 proceeded ex parte and dispatched a demand of almost Rs.52 lacs. At the cost of repetition, we would like to mention that in the notice dated 11.9.2013, which is computer generated clearly reveals that the Delhi address of the petitioner was scored out and in handwriting, the local address has been added. Therefore, it is incorrect to say that the Delhi Address was not in the knowledge of the respondents and we find force in the submissions of the petitioner that local address was inserted deliberately to create jurisdiction, which, in fact, legally was not vested with the opposite party No.2. Therefore, the opposite party No.2 exceeded its jurisdiction, which not only vitiates the impugned show cause notice but the entire proceedings. In these circumstances, the entire proceedings being ab initio illegal, without jurisdiction and in violation of Section 143 (1) (a) of the Income-tax Act.

For the reasons aforesaid, the writ petition is allowed and the impugned notice dated 11.9.2013 is quashed. As the notice has already been quashed, consequential orders, if any, are also quashed."

3. By means of aforesaid writ petition, the applicant assailed a notice dated 11.09.2013 issued by the respondent-Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax, Range - 2, Lucknow under Section 143 (2) of Income Tax Act, 1961 in respect of assessment year 2012-13 on the ground that the said notice was de hors the provisions contained under Section 124 of the Act and has been issued in excess of jurisdiction conferred upon the respondent.

4. Submission of learned counsel for the applicant is that the jurisdiction to assess the petitioner at Lucknow is conspicuously absent in the income tax authorities at Lucknow and that the petitioner can only be assessed by the Assessing Officer at New Delhi, where the petitioner had filed his returns for the assessment year 2013-14 but the opposite party -contemnor has issued notices for manual scrutiny in respect of assessment year 2013-14 and in spite of objection filed by the applicant, the opposite party has threatened to finalize the proceedings ex-parte by 30.03.2015.

5. She next submitted that the cause of action for filing the contempt petition arose upon receipt of notice dated 24.06.2015 at his Delhi address and again on 15.03.2016, whereby anothe