Mohinder Kaur vs Harjit Kaur and others

S.S. Sodhi, J.

The impugned order of the trial Court warrants no interference in revision.

During the pendency of the suit, at the plaintiff''s instance, a temporary injunction had been granted against the defendant which is alleged to have been initiated in respect of this alleged violation of the temporary injunction, the suit was dismissed on June 3, 1988, on the basis of the statements made by the parties to it. It is not doubt settled law now as held by the Division Bench in Rachhpal Singh v. Gurdarshan Singh, 1985(1) PLR 204, that proceedings under Order 39 Rule 2A of the Code of Civil Procedure are meant for enforcing an ad interim injunction and not for punishing the person guilty of such disobedience and no proceedings thereunder can thus be initiated or continued after the ad interim injunction has been vacated. It was also, however, observed that this would not debar the taking of proceedings under the Contempt of Courts Act in spite of the vacation of the ad interim injunction against a person guilty of its breach during the period it remained in force.

No exception can thus be taken to the continuance of proceedings when as observed by the trial Court, "the parties have yet to lead their evidence and it is yet to be seen whether the parties had given any undertaking before the Court regarding the adherence to the ad interim injunction that was passed by the Court during the proceedings of the previous suit, which was statedly dismissed on 13.6.1988. At this stage, therefore, the contempt petition filed by Harjit Kaur cannot be dismissed merely on the ground that the civil suit was dismissed and that therefore, the application under Order 39 Rule 2A C.P.C. was not tenable, because it will have to be determined only from the basis of evidence to be led by the parties as to what were the terms of the statements made by the parties in Court on 13.6.1988 on the basis of which the suit was dismissed. If the parties had undertaken to abide by the terms of the injunction order passed in this case, the said order cannot be deemed to have been vacated even if the suit was dismissed, as withdrawn. Moreover, there is a prayer made by the petitioner to punish the guilty under the provisions of law.."

This revision petition is consequently hereby dismissed. Costs of this petition shall be costs in the proceedings. Counsel fee Rs. 300/