NATIONAL INSURANCE CO LTD Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Letters Patent Appeal is directed against the judgment and order passed by the learned Single Judge of this court on April 21, 1988, in contempt petition No. 79/1988. On the point in controversy raised in the present LPA it is not necessary to burden this order by detailing the entire history and the facts of the case as the main writ petition No. 81/1987, out of which the present proceedings were initiated, is disposed of by the order of the Division Bench passed on June 9, 1988. Pursuant to the pendency of the said writ petition the respondent No. 2 herein -by his application dated April. 29, 1988, prayed for initiating proceedings of contempt against the present appellant on the plea that despite directions by the Division Bench in CMP 151/1987 issued on February 3, 1987, that the petitioners shall not be posted under any of his juniors while he remains at Srinagar, the respondent 1 placed the respondent No.

(2.) UNDER the Administrative Control of his alleged Junior Shri S. K. Dhar, appellant No. 2, so this LPA. The said CMP was moved along with the writ petition No. 81/1987. While the said application was placed before the learned Single Judge, he was pleased to pass the impugned order issuing notice to the appellants calling upon them to show cause why the contempt proceedings be not initiated against them. It is further directed that meanwhile keeping in view the order of the court dated February 3, 1987, passed in CMP No. 158/1987, the appellant No. 2 who was, respondent No. 3 in the main application shall not exercise his administrative control over the respondent No. 2. After notice to the respondents the appeal was taken up for hearing and the counsel for the respective parties were heard at length. It is forcefully urged by the learned counsel for the appellants that the order impugned suffers from the defect of jurisdiction as the interim type of directions restraining appellant No. 2 to exercise administrative control over the respondent No. 2 was neither part of the prayer in the application, nor could have been issued by the learned Single Judge. As on facts at his own violition the respondent 2 already worked at Jammu under the administrative control of appellant No. 2 who is two grade higher in rank to the respondent No. 2 and cannot be debarred to exercise administrative control over his subordinates especially the respondent No. 2, who also suppressed the fact of showing that he had already worked under him. Without any resistence and thus the order impugned is liable to be set aside, as no case of even issuing contempt is made out from the facts on record in the main writ petition, which have not been highlighted by the respondent 2 in his application. 2. Learned counsel for the respondent 2, on the contrary, submitted that the order impugned is passed by the learned Single Judge to implement the order passed by the Division Bench in CMP 158/1987 on February 3, 1987, and cannot either be said to be an excess of jurisdiction conferred on the learned Single Judge or amounts to judgment in any manner, requiring interference in clause XII of the Letters Patent Rules of this High Court. Ordinarily against the issuance of a show cause notice on a petition for contempt, we would not have entertained the LPA in Clause XII of the Letters Patent, but for the exparte interim directions forming part of the impugned order to the following effect:

(3.) WE would not like to enter into the merits of the case because the order impugned passed by the learned Single Judge, prima -facie, appears to be without jurisdiction, firstly, because the order sought to be implemented passed by the Division Bench on 3.2.1987 does not fall within the ambit of any of the clauses of Rule 14 of the J&K High Court Rules, 1975. Proceedings for initiating contempt arising out of the writ petitions do not fall in any of the clauses 1 to 10 of Rule 14 (supra) to be taken cognizance of by the learned Single Judge as till the time when the impugned order came to be passed the writ petition No. 81/1987 was pending admission before the Division Bench of this court which ultimately came to be disposed of on June 9, 1988. As such, we find that on the date when the impugned order was passed the learned Single Judge had no jurisdiction to entertain the contempt petition or to pass any order much less the order impugned directing the appellant not to exercise administrative control over the respondent 2.