Merely Stating That Case Had Lingered In Court For Long Period Of Time Isn't 'Contemptuous': Rajasthan High Court

The Rajasthan High Court has observed that merely stating that a particular proceeding had lingered on before the Court for an unduly long period of time, cannot be seen as contemptuous.

Observing this, the Chief Justice Mr. Akil Kureshi and Justice Rekha Borana terminated a Contempt Petition filed by a Rajasthan Civil Judge, Garima Sauda against a practicing Advocate, Goverdhan Singh.

The case of the judicial officer was that in relation to a criminal case that was pending before her, Singh had made a highly objectionable comment on his Facebook page and several people had responded to that comment, and the same were also objectionable and contemptuous.

The High Court perused the Facebook post in question which referred to various dates on which the criminal case was posted from time to time. Thereafter, the author of the post stated that after several dates, no justice was being done.

It was his case that whether the complaint had to be registered as F.I.R. or not is all that was required to be decided and thereafter, he had made the following remark:-

"Had asked for justice and got only unlimited adjournments"

Against this backdrop, the Court, opining that the action of Singh does not amount to contempt of court in any manner, observed thus:

"Criminal contempt has been defined in Section 2(c) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 as to mean the publication of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court; or prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course of any judicial proceeding; or interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner."

Further, the Court concluded that the remarks of the respondent were in the nature of stating that particular proceedings had lingered on before the Court for an unduly long period of time and that by itself in isolation cannot be seen as contemptuous.

"The reference to the remarks of several other people in response to this post which may be highly objectionable would not turn the action of the present respondent contemptuous unless a specific design or plan is shown to be in existence," added the Court terminated the criminal proceedings.

Case title - Smt Garima Sauda v. Goverdhan Singh and others

Case Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Raj) 13

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