K. Iqbal Ahmed vs Thiru Santhanam, Commissioner, Alandur Municipality

K. Govindarajan, J.—The respondent filed the writ petition in W.P.No. 18501 of 1997 challenging the award in I.D.No.996 of 1992.

Pending the writ petition, the respondent filed the petition in W.M.P.No.29187 of 1997 seeking an order of interim stay of the said award.

Originally the interim order was granted and the applicant filed the petition in W.M.P.No. 18748 of 1998 to vacate the interim order, and

W.M.P.No. 18749 of 1998 u/s 17-B of the Industrial Disputes Act seeking direction to the writ petitioner to pay the applicant herein the last

drawn salary, every month. After hearing the said applications, this Court directed the writ petitioner to pay backwages of Rs. 1,38,000 within

eight weeks from the date of the order namely, 21.9.1998, and further directed to pay a sum of Rs. 900 every month, pending the writ petition, on

or before 10th of every succeeding month. Since the said amount was not paid, the applicant caused a notice through his advocate. Inspite of that

the writ petitioner/respondent did not comply with the same, the applicant has come forward with the above Contempt Application.

The respondent filed a counter stating that the respondent filed Writ Appeal against the portion of the order, directing the respondent to deposit

the sum of Rs. 1,38,000 towards backwages, and in so far as the direction with respect to the payment u/s 17-B is concerned, the respondent was

advised not to file writ appeal. Inspite of that, the other portion of the order passed u/s 17-B of the Act was complied with only on 30.12.1998,

nearly two months after the due date though the first payment should be before 30.10.1998. The reasons for the delay as mentioned in the counter

is that the respondent was having huge volume of work and so he could not follow up the action. I am surprised to see such a reason when the

respondent had knowledge about the time-bound order passed by this Court. The said reason would clearly prove that the respondent would

obey the orders of the Court only after discharging his routine administrative work, leisurely though it is time-bound order. The first payment was

made only after filing the Contempt Application. The Commissioner, Alandur Municipality cannot come forward with the plea that due to heavy

administrative work he could not pay the amount. When the respondent was represented by a counsel when the order was passed by this Court,

the respondent need not wait till the order is received, especially when time-bound direction had been given. Even if, any difficulty is experienced

by the respondent in complying with the direction in time and if really the respondent had intention to obey the Court orders in time, he should have

approached this Court for extension or modification of the order. The fact that the respondent had no inclination to do so, and he has come

forward with the plea that only due to administrative work, he could not carry out the Court direction, and the non-compliance of the direction of

this Court in time can be nothing but disobedience of the order of this Court, wilfully. Whatever may be the volume of work, the respondent should

have complied with the direction of this Court; otherwise passing time-bound orders by the Courts would not serve any purpose, and the general

public would not get any benefit out of the same. If this type of attitude is encouraged or developed, passing time-bound orders by the Courts

would be only in paper and the purpose of passing the same would be defeated. The general public are approaching the Court only as a last

remedy, and after satisfying the Court on merits, they are getting such orders. Even then, if the authorities concerned are not complying with the

same strictly in accordance with the orders passed by the Courts, the general public would be left with no other remedy except filing such

Contempt Applications. I am able to see that the Court orders are being complied with only after receiving notice in the Contempt Applications. I

am also able to see that, now-a-days, after committing contempt of Court orders, the officials come forward with the averments in the affidavits,

tendering their unconditional apologies, for non-compliance of the Court orders, in order to escape from such contempt proceedings. Since it has

become the routine practice by mentioning those words in the affidavits filed, Contempt Applications cannot be rejected, on that ground alone.

This type of attitude should be deprecated .

In this case, the reason stated in the counter for non-compliance of the Court order, namely, the administrative work, cannot be accepted.

Whatever may be the volume of work, the respondent should have given preference in complying with the Court orders. He should not have left

the Court order on the table untouched till he completes his huge volume of work as stated in the counter. After appreciating the counter, I find that

the non-compliance of the Court order in time is nothing but intentional.

In view of the above, I find that the respondent is liable to be punished, and so he is directed to pay a sum of Rs. 1,500 with the Registry, as

penalty which should be paid personally, and not from the municipal fund, within one month from this date, failing which he is liable for simple

imprisonment for five days. With the above observations, this Contempt Application is ordered accordingly.