Dharamvir Singh vs Navraj Sandhu

Swatanter Kumar, J.

Notice. Mr. Gobind Dhanda, AAG, Haryana accepts notice.

In this petition under Section 10 read with Section 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act the grievance of the petitioners is that the respondents are not complying with the directions issued by a Bench of this Court as contained in the order dated 7.9.1995. Vide this order the petition of the petitioner was disposed of and he was held entitled to the relief as in the case of Rattan Singh and others v. State of Haryana. The petitioners were entitled to get higher pay scale from the date they had acquired higher qualifications. This order passed by the Division Bench has not been complied with till today. On the contrary the respondents have passed an order restricting the claim of the petitioners to 38 months with regard to arrears.

The submission of the learned counsel for the State is that they have complied with the orders of the Court as they have an equal legal and well recognised right of paying the arrears only for the last 38 months from the date of filing of the writ petition. This is being controverted by the learned counsel for the petitioner on the basis of the Division Bench. The Division Bench certainly had not placed any such restriction in its order nor it had said that the arrears which are payable in accordance with law to be paid to the petitioner.

Keeping in view the above facts it certainly cannot be termed as an intentional and wilful violation of the orders of the Court. The respondents may have an arguable issue but this issue cannot be adjudicated upon or determined in this contempt petition because the jurisdiction under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 while entertaining such a petition is a very limited one, that is whether the order of the Court has been implemented or not. As the order stands the respondents may be obliged to pay the entire dues unless and until the order of the Division Bench is modified or varied by the concerned Bench itself. Keeping in view these facts and circumstances this petition is disposed of with the directions to the respondents to seek clarification within a period of four weeks from today from the Court of competent jurisdiction and if no such clarification is sought by the respondents or the concerned Bench declines to clarify the order as interpreted by the respondents the respondents shall pay the entire arrears to the petitioner within four weeks thereafter. With these directions this petition as well as COCP 971 of 1996 are disposed of.