OM PRAKASH Vs. BOARD OF SCHOOL EDUCATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a miscellaneous petition filed by the respondent Board of School Education praying that the petitioners should not be allowed to prosecute, and be heard in, the Supreme Court Application No. 4 of 1974 until they have purged themselves of their contempt of this Court.

(2.) A writ petition was filed by the petitioners against the Board of School Education and others challenging the selection of certain text books for use in educational institutions in Himachal Pradesh and the rejection of the text books submitted by them. The writ petition was heard by a Full Bench of this Court and was dismissed on May 7, 1974. On June 27, 1974 the petitioners filed a petition (S. C. A. No. 4 of 1974) for a certificate from this Court to enable them to appeal to the Supreme Court. It appears that about this time the first petitioner, Om Parkash, who is said to be the sole proprietor of the second petitioner, Radha Krishan Prakashan published a booklet under the title "Samik Sahitva" in which some critical references are said to have been made to the judgment of this Court disposing of the writ petition. Upon a petition filed by the Board of School Education for contempt proceedings against the petitioners notice has been issued to the petitioners.

(3.) THE first question which arises is whether the contempt which the petitioners are alleged to have committed is of the kind which disentitles them to being heard on the petition for certificate. It will be interesting to trace the origin and development of the rule that a party in contempt will not be heard. The growth of Church organisation which accompanied the decline of the Roman Empire save rise to a corresponding growth in the quantity and variety of the sources of ecclesiastical law. The systematic research of the eleventh Century which was undertaken in order to confine ancient and universally recognised authorities in canon law led to the Decretum of Ivo of chartres in 1095. The systematization of canon law was carried to its conclusion by Gartian who soon after 1140 published his great work ''The Concordance of Discordant Canons." It was the constant endeavour of the canonists of this period and beyond it to make their system reduce to a minimum the divergence between the law and morals. Although the canon law was primarily concerned with the organisation of the Church and spiritual discipline, nevertheless a great deal of it did affect the daily life of the laity in a veriety of ways, and in the end exerted profound influence upon the development of national laws. Plucknet: A Concise History of the Common Law, 3rd Edn p. 267 et sea.