‘Person approaching superior court must come with clean hands’
*Rs 25,000 cost imposed on applicant for suppressing facts
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 16: High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has held that weapon of contempt is not to be used in abundance and a person approaching superior court must come with clean hands so that process of law doesn’t get throttled.
Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal made these observations while dismissing a contempt petition and imposing Rs 25,000 cost on the applicant for suppressing the material facts and making conscious effort to mislead the court.
After several rounds of litigations between the applicant Gull Mohammad Bhat and Government of J&K over the issue of land acquisition and compensation, the applicant filed an application under Article 215 of the Constitution of India read with Section 2 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 for initiation of contempt proceedings against the respondents for allegedly causing obstruction in the administration of justice.
After hearing Advocate J H Reshi for the applicant and Senior Additional Advocate General Mohsin Qadri and others for the respondents, Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal observed, “the respondents have availed the legal remedies and have got the interim orders in their favour which continue to be operative as on date”, adding “the applicant instead of contesting his right before the appropriate proceedings has chosen to file the present petition by way of camouflage with a view to apply pressure tactics and by seeking dismissal of the petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India by respondents”.
“The act of the respondents does not fall within the definition of civil contempt or criminal contempt as defined under Section 2(b) and 2(c) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, and thus the instant petition which has been filed with a view to apply pressure tactics deserves to be dismissed”, High Court said.
Justice Nargal further observed, “the contempt jurisdiction exercised by the courts is only for the purpose of upholding the majesty of judicial system that exists. While exercising this power, the courts must not be hyper sensitive or swung by emotions, but must act judicially”, adding “I am fortified by the view of the Apex Court that weapon of contempt is not to be used in abundance or misused. Normally, it cannot be used for execution of the decree or implementation of an order for which alternative remedy in law is provided for”.
“The present application for seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against the respondents is totally an abuse of process of court, more particularly, when the applicant has a remedy of contesting in both the petitions pending before this court in RFA No. 42/2019 and CM(M) No. 178/2022 filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India by the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir”, High Court said.
It was observed that the applicant failed to make out a case that how the contempt court can enlarge the scope of contempt jurisdiction by directing dismissal of a petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, in which the applicant has already appeared and his presence was recorded.
On the aspect of suppression, equity, unclean hands and fraud, Justice Nargal observed, “I am fortified by the view of the Supreme Court that a person approaching a superior court must come with clean hands. He should not suppress any material fact as well as should not take recourse to the legal proceedings over and over again which amounts to abuse of the process of law, adding “the law has been settled that suppression of a material fact with a view to mislead the court amounts to abuse of process of law”.
With these observations, Justice Nargal dismissed the petition as the same was sheer abuse of process of court as the applicant by no stretch of imagination can seek dismissal of a petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India particularly when the respondents have availed the legal remedies as available under law.
“No contempt is made out against the respondents, as such, the contempt proceedings initiated against the respondents are dropped as the respondents have availed the legal remedy of challenging the order passed by the Principal District Judge, Anantnag, which by no stretch of imagination can be construed as an obstruction in the course of justice”, High Court said.
“Since the applicant has abused the process of law by filing the present petition on false and flimsy grounds by suppressing the material facts and made conscious effort to mislead the court by invoking jurisdiction of this court under Article 215 of the Constitution read with Section 2 of Contempt of Courts Act, it is a fit case where costs can be imposed upon the applicant to deprecate such practice”, High Court said.
Accordingly, Rs 25,000 cost was imposed on the applicant which shall be payable and deposited by the applicant in the Advocates Welfare Fund within a period of four weeks.
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