In Contempt Matters The Affidavit Should Not Contain More Than 3 Pages: Gujarat High Court To Govt Pleaders

Taking note of the practice of filing long affidavits before the Court in contempt matters, the Gujarat High Court today directed the Government pleaders to restrict their affidavits to a maximum of three pages.

The Bench of Chief Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice Ashutosh Shastri orally remarked thus:

"This practice of filing affidavits in 8 pages, 12 pages should stop in contempt matter. This is not a court of appeal, why do you want to convert these cases into appeal cases. Supreme Court has come down heavily on the practice of traveling beyond what has been ordered."

The Court further added that a direction must be issued to all the government pleaders to file affidavits in not more than 3 pages in contempt matter.

"Just three pages, this s the order, I have not complied, this is the reason. In case of delay for no reason, a minimum of 10,000/- cost is to be paid by the officer concerned," the bench orderd.

The Court also told the Government pleaders that in case the order has been complied with, there is no need to file the affidavits and the state can just inform the court that the orders have been complied with.

Importantly, in this regard, the Bench also referred to the Apex Court's ruling in the case of V. Senthur and another versus M. Vijayakumar IAS and others |Contempt Petition(Civil) 638/2017, wherein the Court had observed thus:

"In a contempt jurisdiction, the court will not travel beyond the original judgment and direction; neither would it be permissible for the court to issue any supplementary or incidental directions, which were not to be found in the original judgment."

"The Court is only concerned with the wilful or deliberate non­compliance of the directions issued in the original judgment and order", the Apex Court had added.