1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY, APPELLATE SIDE NAGPUR BENCH, NAGPUR Contempt Petition Nos. 64 of 2007 (Tarkeshwari Anandrao Gadwar Vs. Prasad Dadaji Anantwar) Contempt Petition No. 247 of 2005 (Maya Sakharam Moon Vs. Prasad Dadaji Anantwar) Contempt Petition No. 246 of 2005 Sangeeta Parasram Kolte Vs. Prasad Dadaji Anantwar) Contempt Petition No. 248 of 2005 (Babilata Eknathrao Wane Vs. Prasad Dadaji Anantwar) Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court orders or directions and Registrar's orders Court's or Judge's orders CORAM: C. L. PANGARKAR J. Dated: 22 nd October, 2008. These petitions have been filed under Section 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act read with Article 215 of the Constitution of India. Petitioners in these petitions had filed Writ Petition Nos. 3684/05, 5095/04 5094/04 and 5093/04. These writ petitions were filed for granting approval to the appointment of the petitioners and for arrears of salary and allowances. This 2 Court while dealing with these petitions has passed an interim order on 30.09.2006. The Court admitted these writ petitions and directed that there shall be an interim order in terms of prayer clause (iii). It was directed by the Court specifically that respondent No.4 who is the present contemner shall pay all salary and allowances to the petitioner from the time they were employed in the respondent No.5 School and continue to pay their salary till the services are terminated. It was also directed that arrears of salary and allowances be paid to the petitioner within a period of 6 weeks. 2. It is alleged that respondent No. 4 has deliberately and willfully neglected to comply with the order and has thus disobeyed these orders. The petitioners therefore make a prayer that respondent No.4 i.e. the present contemner be punished for the contempt of Court. 3. Before I proceed to discuss further the question as to whether there is a willful default on the part of the contemner to make payment and whether the order was willfully disobeyed, it would be necessary to mention few more facts: 3 4. Petitioners tried to recover the amount from the respondents by other methods. This Court had initially directed the attachment of the salary of the contemner in order to recover the amount. When it was found that attachment of salary would not be enough to recover the amount this Court directed that the property of the contemner be sold and money be recovered. 5. In the meanwhile respondent had given an undertaking that he would make payment. 6. After having gone through the reply filed by the respondent, it is apparent that he does not dispute that such a payment is to be made to the petitioners and that in these cases there is an order to that effect of this Court. Respondent contented that he could not pay the amount because of the financial constraints. He has no intention to disregard the order passed by the Court and he is always ready and willing to pay the amount. He has contended that after selling his own agricultural land he had made payment of Rs. 1 lac to the petitioners and he intends to make payment as and when he receives the grant for the year 2005-06 and 2006-07. He submits that therefore the 4 Court may not take any action against him and the default on his part is neither willful nor deliberate. 7. Along with the reply in Contempt Petition no. 64 of 2007 the contemner respondent has filed certain documents stating as to how the amount was spent by him which he had received after sell of the property. Further he has filed in the contempt petition the affidavit dated 05/09/2008. If this affidavit is seen, it would show that he has been deliberately avoiding to make payment. This affidavit itself shows that there is a willful default on the part of the respondent to obey the order of the Court. Affidavit itself discloses that on 28.09.2007 the contemner had sold 2.5 acres of land for Rs.13,00,000/- and he paid only Rs. 5,50,000/- to the petitioners in connected matters. This affidavit therefore shows that upon sale of the land the contemner had received a sum of Rs. 13,00,000/-, but instead of making the payments to the petitioners and discharging his liability as directed by the Court contemner chose to advance the loan to the Society. It shows that he advanced a loan of Rs. 8,00,000/- to the Society. When there was a direction of the 5 Court and contempt proceedings were pending against him, there was no reason for the contemner to have advanced a loan to the Society instead of paying the amount to the petitioners. This act on the part of the contemner therefore itself shows that there is a willful disobedience of the order of the Court. I, therefore, find that contemner is guilty of contempt of Court. In these circumstances I proceed to pass the following order: 8. Contemner is held guilty of the contempt of Court in all the petitions. He is given one more opportunity to purge the contempt. If the contemner pays the entire amount payable to the petitioners within a period of 3 weeks no further action shall follow against him, but if he does not purge the contempt the contemner is sentenced to undergo imprisonment for a period of one month if the amount is not paid within 3 weeks from today. 9. Registrar of this Court shall issue warrant of arrest as well as warrant of committal of the contemner to prison if the amount is not paid or deposited in Court within 3 weeks. svk JUDGE