NEW DELHI: The Law Commission is not in favour of restricting the contempt of court law as it has the potential to “lesson the respect for courts”.
Restricting it could damage the reputation of the judiciary and threaten the country’s democratic system, according to the commission’s draft report accessed by The New Indian Express.
On March 8, the government had asked the commission to examine if amendments can be made in the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, in order to remove the concept of criminal contempt and “restrict” the Act to civil contempt only.
Civil contempt is defined as willful disobedience of any judgment/order of a court or willful breach of an undertaking given to a court. Criminal contempt means the publication - whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation or otherwise - of any matter that scandalises/tends to scandalise the authority of a court. Any act that interferes or tends to interfere with the administration of justice can also amount to criminal contempt.
The law panel’s draft report recommends that the provision of criminal contempt is desirable as the law “contains adequate safeguards to exclude (its) misapplication”. Any amendment in the Act would be “futile exercise”. The panel headed by Justice B S Chauhan will discuss the draft report on April 17 when all members of the commission are expected to meet.
Tinkering may destroy the system
“If browbeating the court, flagrant violation of professional ethics and uncultured conduct is tolerated, that would result in ultimate destruction of a system without which no democracy can survive,” the draft report states.
Stats on criminal contempt
Statistics show “glaring occurrences of criminal contempt”. In all, 568 criminal contempt cases and 96,310 civil contempt cases were pending in the high courts between July 1, 2016, and June 30, 2017.