Compromise decree undertakings to vacate can amount to court undertakings, and non-compliance may constitute contempt.

A compromise decree requiring a party to vacate by a fixed date, coupled with a recorded undertaking, may be construed as an undertaking to the Court where the surrounding terms show it was meant to support the court-sanctioned settlement rather than create a merely private promise. Continued occupation beyond the stipulated date, without actual delivery of possession, amounted to breach; alleged tender by letters under certificate of posting did not displace the factual finding of non-compliance. On that construction, the breach constituted contempt and attracted punishment by fine with default simple imprisonment.

---

---

Issues: Whether the respondent's promise to vacate the premises by the stipulated date, embodied in the compromise decree and recorded as an undertaking, was an undertaking to the Court and whether failure to comply amounted to contempt.

Analysis: The compromise terms required the respondent to quit and deliver possession by the end of July 1962, and the decree recorded that he gave an undertaking to that effect. The surrounding circumstances showed that the undertaking was not a mere private promise to the decree-holder but was intended to reinforce the court-sanctioned arrangement. The respondent's attempts to rely on a supposed fresh tenancy, later abandoned in the compromise in the execution appeal, were not accepted. The Court also found that the alleged tender of possession by letters sent under certificate of posting did not establish actual compliance, particularly since the respondent continued in occupation beyond the stipulated date. The presumption of posting and delivery arising under the law of evidence was treated as rebuttable and was displaced on the facts.

Conclusion: The undertaking was held to be an undertaking to the Court, the respondent was found to have breached it, and the conduct was held to constitute contempt.

Final Conclusion: The Rule was made absolute and the respondent was punished for contempt by fine with a default sentence of simple imprisonment.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a compromise decree records a party's undertaking to vacate by a fixed date and the terms show no alternative consequence for breach, failure to comply with that undertaking can constitute contempt of Court if the undertaking is properly construed as one given to the Court and not merely to the opposite party.

---