NALINI KANT JHA Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard counsel for the petitioner and the learned Advocate General for the respondents.

(2.) The contempt application was filed on 14-11-2000 complaining that a direction issued by the Court on 15-7-1993 in C.W.J.C. No. 12007 of 1992 had not been complied with and this amounted to a wilful disobedience of the order of the Court. The learned Advocate General pointed out that no action under the Contempt of Courts Act be taken in view of the bar contained in Section 20 of the Contempt of Courts Act, the Contempt of Court petition not having been filed within one year of the disobedience. Learned counsel for the petitioner sought to meet this plea by pointing out that the petitioner had earlier filed another writ petition in the Patna High Court which was disposed of on 15-9-2000 by Annexure-6 judgment giving liberty to the petitioner to move the Court under the Contempt of Courts Act and the present Contempt of Court case has been filed within two months of that order.

(3.) Obviously, the Court cannot extend the period of limitation or the period provided under Section 20 of the Contempt of Courts Act. Therefore, merely because the Court observed in the subsequent writ petition in C.W.C.J. No. 7893 of 2000 that the remedy of the petitioner lay in moving a petition under the Contempt of Courts Act. It would not mean that the time for filing a Contempt case fixed under Section 20 of the Contempt of Courts Act gets extended. Therefore, there is substance in the contention that this Contempt of Court application is barred under Section 20 of the Contempt of Courts Act. All the same, this Court as a Court of record could take note of a wilful disobedience of its order even apart from what is contained in the Contempt of Courts Act and the bar created under that Act would not apply. In that context, we think it appropriate to examine whether there has been a wilful disobedience of the direction of the Patna High Court as alleged.