TARAFATULLAH MANDAL Vs. S N MAITRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Rule on five persons requiring them to show cause why they should not be proceeded against for contempt for having disregarded and disobeyed certain interim orders made by Bose J. while granting a Rule nisi on an application under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. Of the five persons, the first is Sri S, N. Maitra, Collector of 24 Parganas; the second is the State of West Bengal, represented by Sri S. Banerjee; the third is Sri S. N. Roy, Belief Officer of Basirhat; the fourth is Sri Prafulla Chandra Dob Boy, Superintendent, Refugee Camp, Basirhat; and the fifth is Sri Atul Krishna Gain, Kanungo at Basirhat.

(2.) The petitioners are three in number and claim to be owners of certain lands in village Gokulpore in the District of 24 Parganas. It appears that on 20-8-1951, a petition was moved on their behalf and on behalf of certain other persons for various writs against the first opposite party and the State of West Bengal on the allegation that they were taking various steps to deprive the-petitioners of their lands in purported and illegal exercise of their supposed powers under the West Bengal Land Development and Planning Act, 1948, which was an ultra vires piece of legislation. A schedule to the petition gave particulars of the lands in respect of which the rights of the petitioners were alleged to have been invaded. The writ, asked for by prayer (a) of the petition, was a writ of Mandamus, directing the opposite parties therein to forbear from depriving the petitioners of their property by way of any orders under Act 21 of 1948; that, asked for by prayer (b), was a writ of prohibition, prohibiting the opposite parties from taking any stop under the aforesaid Act; and the writ, asked for by prayer (c), was a direction upon The opposite parties to forbear from taking any steps under the Act already mentioned. Bose J., it appears, did not issue any writ straightaway, but instead issued a Rule Nisi and in the meantime he passed interim orders in terms of prayers (a), (b) and (c). Those orders were necessarily only against the present opposite party No. 1 and the State of West Bengal.

(3.) It is alleged that in spite of those orders being passed and with knowledge of them, opposite parties Nos. 1 and 2 continued their interference with the lands of the petitioners. Not only did they not desist from proceeding with the proceedings of acquisition, but they also caused actual acts of aggression to be done and opposite parties Nos. 3, 4 and 5 forcibly trespassed into certain plots of land belonging to the petitioners, sank a tube well in one of them and felled trees in others. It was not stated in the petition when these acts had been done and the petitioners contented themselves with stating that they had been done after the interim orders had been made. The acts complained of constitute, in the submission of the petitioners, contempt of this Court and accordingly they prayed that the opposite parties might be committed to prison for wilfully flouting and disobeying the interim orders made by Bose J.