Thomas George vs Vinod Kumar

J. Chelameswar, C.J.—The Contempt Case is filed complaining that the interim order dated 12.07.2010 is deliberately violated by the respondent herein.

The facts of the case are as follows:

The petitioner herein entered into an agreement with somebody, who is not a party to the instant proceedings, undertaking to construct a residential building for the third party. It appears that the said contract ended in a dispute between the parties to the contract and the abovementioned third party sought intervention of the local police in the matter on the ground that the writ petitioner defrauded the said third party. Thereupon, the respondent who is the police officer(the sole respondent herein) is alleged to have "harassed" the petitioner. Complaining of such harassing by the sole respondent herein, he approached this Court by way of W.P.(C) No. 21350 of 2010. While admitting the writ petition, a Division Bench of this Court passed an interim order on 12.07.2010, the relevant portion of which reads as follows:

We record the submission of Government Pleader that the petitioner will not be harassed by police authorities, a crime has been registered and that lawful investigation will be done by the authorities. We record the said submissions.

It appears that subsequent to the said order, a news item appeared in a prominent local daily newspaper, "Malayala Manorama", briefly narrating the abovementioned episode which according to the petitioner, is likely to give an impression that the petitioner is guilty of the offence of fraud not only in the case of abovementioned contract but in many other instances.

The petitioner claimed that on an enquiry from the office of the abovementioned newspaper he came to know that such an information was given by the sole respondent herein and hence the present Contempt Case, complaining that the feeding of the abovementioned information amounts to "harassment" and therefore violative of the interim order mentioned above.

The interim order, in our opinion, which directed the respondents, including the respondent herein, not to "harass" the petitioner must be understood in the context of the allegations made in the writ petition. Feeding of the information, such as the one with which we are concerned in the present Contempt Case, to a newspaper may give rise to a cause of action and render the respondent liable, perhaps some civil or criminal action, but in our opinion, the feeding of such information (we are not deciding the fact that the feeding of the information is actually done by the respondent but we presume for the purpose of the present order) does not in any way constitute a contumacious act. The act of feeding of information, if at all, is not in discharge of the functions of the respondent in his official capacity. We are of the opinion that the petition is sheer abuse of the process of this Court. The Contempt Petition is therefore dismissed at the admission stage.