Hari Om Gupta Vs State of Delhi and ors. - Court Judgment

Excerpt:

.....and whether issuance of notice to initiate contempt proceeding would be justified merely on assumption, speculation and inference drawn from facts without existence of a clear case of wilful disobedience to the order of the high court so as to treat it as a case of contempt of court of civil nature.[para 5] on a scrutiny of the sequence of events narrated hereinbefore, we are clearly of the view in the first place that the contempt alleged against the appellant would not amount to a criminal contempt because the alleged contempt even if made out would clearly at the best be of a civil nature, which is evident from section 2 of the contempt of courts act 1971[para 12] that contempt of a civil nature can be held to have been made out only if there has been a wilful disobedience of the order and even though there may be disobedience, yet if the same does not reflect that it has been a conscious and wilful disobedience, a case for contempt cannot be held to have been made out. [para 13] thus, initiation of the contempt proceeding against the petitioner by the learned single judge is based on a wholly wrong premise based on unsustainable and unfounded facts which..........incident, there were quarrels and tension between the two families of the petitioner and mr. narender sharma, the respondent no. 5 and preventive action under section 107/150 cr.p.c. was initiated by dd entry no. 45b dated 24th march, 2007 but the same has been disposed of. after the said incident, the petitioner had shifted to a different house in the same colony but now the petitioner has come back and is residing in his earlier house which is in front of the house of mr. narender sharma, respondent no. 5.5. in the status report it is stated that police staff has been deputed to monitor the situation and to ensure that there is no quarrel between the petitioner and the respondent no. 5 and they do not abuse or misbehave with each other. the status report further states that statements of neighbours of the petitioner and the respondent no. 5 have been recorded and they have stated that no quarrel has taken place between the two families for last two-three months. some allegations have also been made against mr. kapil gupta.6. in view of the aforesaid position, i do not think any orders are required to be passed in the present petition. delhi police is conscious of their.....