The main legal point established in the judgment is the imposition of punishment for contempt of court in case of wilful disobedience of court orders.

S.K. Gangele, J.

1. Shri K.N. Gupta, Sr. Advocate, with Shri Anmol Khedkar, Advocate, for applicants.

Shri U.K. Jain, Advocate, for Respondents No. 1 & 3.

Shri D.P. Singh, Advocate, for Respondent No. 2.

Heard.

Applicants have filed this application under Order 39, Rule 2-A, Code of Civil Procedure for awarding a proper punishment against Respondents on account of disobedience of the order dated 18-5-2006 passed by this Court in First Appeal No. 270/2003.

2. Applicants filed a suit in the Court of First Additional District Judge, Vidisha for declaration and permanent injunction in regard to an agricultural land. The Plaintiffs - applicants claimed that they have 1/4th share in the suit land. The trial Court decreed the suit vide judgment and decree dated 18-8-2003. Against the aforesaid judgment and decree Sanman Singh, Respondent No. 1 filed an appeal before this Court, which was registered as First Appeal No. 270/2003.

3. The first appeal came up for hearing before this Court on 18-5-2006 and learned Single Judge of this Court passed the following order under Order 39, Rules 1 and 2 Code of Civil Procedure:

18-5-2006

Shri U.K. Jain, learned Counsel for the Petitioner

Shri Praveen Newaskar, learned Counsel for the Respondents No. 1 and 2.

Shri D.D. Bansal, learned Counsel for Respondents No. 4 and 5.

Shri Bhagwan Pandey, learned Counsel for Respondent No. 7.

Heard on I.A. No. 8276/06 which is an application for vacating the stay order and I. A. No. 8277/06 which is an application under Order XXXIX, Rule 1 and 2 Code of Civil Procedure. Wherein prayer is made that Appellant and Respondents No. 3, 4, 5, 7 to 12 be restrained from alienating the suit property and also not to raise any construction over the suit property.

Counsel for Appellant prays for time to file reply of the application. Reply be filed within four weeks. Till then Appellant and Respondents No. 3 to 5 and 7 to 12 are restrained from selling any specific part of the property.

C.c. as per rules.

4. Subsequently, the case was listed on 14-8-2006 before the Court. On the aforesaid date the learned Single judge ordered that the order dated 18-5-2006 shall remain in operation till final disposal of this appeal. After the order of this Court, the Respondent No. 1 by a registered sale-deed dated 30-3-2007 sold a part of the property of Survey No. 291/5 to Respondent No. 2. Another sale-deed was also executed on 5-6-2006 and a sale-deed dated 12-5-2000 was executed by Respondent No. 1 in favour of Dhanwantibai and another sale-deed 1-4-2004 in favour of Kishorilal Jatav. As per the applicants the Respondent No. 1 has sold the suit property in disobedience of the order passed by this Court on 18-5-2006.

5. Respondent No. 1 in his reply has admitted the fact that he has sold the property after passing the order of this Court. The relevant averments raised by Respondent No. 1 to this effect is as under:

4. That, the answering non-applicant is a patient of Harniya and remains ill and is a retired government servant who is retired in the year 1993, and generally remains ill and twice operated for Harniya and Gallbladder. Due to medical treatment and meet the family expenses of non-applicant No. 1 he has to sale part of the land which is much less to his share. The area of the total land was 2.497 Hectare which is approximately 13 Bighas and the share of answering non-applicant was 1/4 which comes to 3.5 Bighas of the land, while the total land sold by answering non-applicant was less than 1 Bigha and no specific share was sold by him. Hence, the answering non-applicant has not committed breach of injunction. The land sold to Narayan Singh was 20' x 10' on 1-4-2000, Kishori Lal area 20' x 10' on 1-5-2000, Dhanwanti 25' x 25' on 12-5-2000, Geeta Bai 15' x 16' on 17-5-2005, Sushila Bai area 235 sq. ft. on 15-6-2006 and Narayan Singh 261/2434 = 0.206 Hectare of 30-3-2007. These all lands are liable to be adjusted in the share on non applicant No. 2, which is even more left after adjusting t