1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION CONEMPT PETITION NO.16 OF 2008 IN NOTICE OF MOTION NO.2424 OF 2004 IN SUIT NO.7044 OF 1999 Bombay Stock Exchange Ltd. ....Petitioner (Ori.Deft.No.1) V/s. Yogesh Mehta ....Respondent (Ori.Plff.) Mr.P.N. Mody with Mr.Sagar Divekar and Mr.Faraz Alam Sagar i/b Wadia Gandhy & Co. for Petitioner. Ms.Sonal i/b Goenka Law Associate for the Respondent. CORAM : S.J. VAZIFDAR, J. DATE : 25TH AUGUST, 2009. P.C. :- 1. This Contempt Petition is taken out by Defendant No.1 alleging inter-alia contempt on the part of the Plaintiff of an order dated 24.6.2005, passed by the learned Single Judge of this Court in Notice of Motion No.2424 of 2004 in the above suit. 2. It is necessary to set out the facts only briefly for the purpose of this Contempt Petition. There have been disputes between the Plaintiff and the Defendant for over ten years now. By an order dated 10.12.1996, the Plaintiff was declared a defaulter. His membership of the B.S.E. was, therefore, cancelled. 2 3. In the present suit, the Plaintiff has challenged the order dated 10.12.1996, sought a decree for damages in the sum of Rs.100 crores and for a decree for various sums in respect of the transactions carried out by the Plaintiff prior to 10.12.1996 in respect of three scrips. In the year 2004, the B.S.E. was converted into a new company viz. “The Bombay Stock Exchange Limited” after demutualisation and corporatisation of the B.S.E. The B.S.E. had made a statement that the suit would continue against the new company. 4. The Plaintiff thereupon made several representations and wrote several letters to various bodies and persons alleging inter-alia that the continuation of the suit against the new company had not been brought to the notice of SEBI and the members of the B.S.E. In other words, they had not been informed of the financial implications as a result of the pendency of the present suit. This was also based by the Plaintiff on the fact that he had filed a lis-pendence with the Sub-Registrar of Assurances. In the lis-pendence, the Plaintiff stated that he had filed a suit of the description given in the schedule and in respect of the properties described in the schedule and that during the pendency of the suit, the said property mentioned in the schedule, cannot be transferred or dealt with by any party to the suit so as to affect the rights of any party thereto under any decree/order which may be made therein except under the authority of such Court and on such term as it may impose. The schedule refers to the immovable properties of the B.S.E. which are of an extremely large and extensive nature including the Bombay Stock Exchange Building in the centre of the business district of the city. 5. That the description in the annexures is incorrect, is admitted. The consequence of this incorrect description does not fall for consideration in the 3 present Contempt Petition. It falls for consideration only in Notice of Motion No.2424 of 2004, which is pending in this Court. 6. Aggrieved by the above conduct of the Plaintiff, the Defendants took out said Notice of Motion No.2424 of 2004 seeking an order under Section 340 of the Criminal Procedure Code read with 195(1)(b)(i) for ordering an enquiry against the Plaintiff for the commission of the offence under Section 199 of the Indian Penal Code by making a flase statement before the Sub-Registrar of Assurances and for an order recording the finding of an offence under Section 199 of the Indian Penal Code and thereafter a complaint in writing to be sent to the Chief Metropolitan Court for trying the same. 7. An ad-interim application was made in the said Notice of Motion No.2424 of 2004. The learned judge passed the following order in this Notice of Motion on 24.6.2005 :- “The Plaintiff through the learned counsel undertakes to withdraw the letters written by him, copies of which are at Exh.1 and Exh.2 to the affidavit of Mr.Ashish Inamdar dated 26th April, 2005, as also letters, copies of which are at Exhs.Q, R & S to the affidavit of the Plaintiff dated 28th September, 2004.He also undertakes not to write such letters in future without seeking leave of the court. In view of this undertaking, the Notice of Motion is directed to be heard at the time of hearing of the suit. The learned Counsel for the Plaintiff informs that the above referred letters will be withdrawn by the Plaintiff by writing letters to the authorities or to the Press to whom these letters are addressed, within a period of two weeks from today, with a copy to the Defendants.” 8. Letters at Exhibits J to R of the Contempt Petition fall within the ambit of the words “such letters” to wit i.e. they are letters similar to those at Exhibits-1 and 2 to the affidavit dated 26.4.2005 filed on behalf of Defendant 4 No.1 and Exhibits Q, R and S to the affidavit of the Plaintiff dated 28.9.2004. There is little doubt that the letters at Exhibits J to R to a large extent are similar to the letters referred to in the order dated 24.6.2005. For instance, they set out all the contents regarding the disputes between the Plaintiff and the Defendants, the filing of the lis-pendence and the effect thereof upon the third parties. Had this been done with the leave of the Court, there could be no cause for complaint. The letters however, were written without the leave of the Court. 9. It was submitted that the purpose for which the order dated 24.6.2005 was passed and the actual effect of the order was to accept the undertaking only to the extent of the reference to the lis-pendence. 10. I am unable to agree. The order speaks for itself. It is not open for me to either expand or limit the ambit of the order and the undertaking referred to therein. I hasten to add that in this Contempt Petition, it is not necessary for me to decide whether such restrictions ought to be placed on a party or not for three reasons. Firstly, I am not considering an application to this effect. Secondly, in the Contempt Petition only the question that falls for consideration is whether the order has been violated or not. Thirdly, the order records the undertaking of the party which is not withdrawn. 11. Despite this, no action for contempt of court is called for on this occasion in the facts and circumstances of the present case for more than one reason. It was submitted that the letters were written in response to a direction/query from SEBI which had constituted a committee for investigating a complaint of the Plaintiff. Secondly, I am inclined to accept the explanation 5 tendered by the learned counsel for the Plaintiff that the Plaintiff was genuinely under an impression that the order did not prevent him from writing a letter to a statutory authority such as SEBI. Thus even assuming that the undertaking prevented the Plaintiff from addressing the letters even to the authorities, Government officers/officials and such other bodies, I am not inclined to take any action for contempt on this occasion. 12. The Contempt Petition is accordingly disposed of with no order as to costs.