1992 (8) TMI 293

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....Billoria, Secretary to Government of Jammu and Kashmir and Shri N.R. Gupta, Commissioner/Secretary, Government of Jammu and Kashmir for non-compliance of the direction issued by the Court under its order March 19,1990. In view of the order which we are proposing to pass, it is not necessary to deal with all the facts leading to the present case in detail and it will be sufficient for the purposes of the appeal to set out the circumstances briefly, as mentioned hereafter. 3. The respondent No. 1 filed a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution registered as Writ Petition No. 133 of 1990 for the implementation of, what has been described by Mr. Bhandare, the learned Counsel for the respondents, as a decree modified subsequently ....

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.... other side. The direction was not for maintenance of status quo; nor again was it restraint order on the State authorities forbidding from taking any step to which the writ petitioner could have an objection. As a result of the interim direction, the writ petitioner was to receive the fruits of the decree (in the language of the learned Counsel for the respondents before us, that is, the writ petitioner) to the extent of half. The facts disclose that the stakes in the case are very high. According to the State it had already paid a huge amount of money. Mainly it has discharged its obligation in full. Hence it is not liable to pay anything further or to deliver any timber as claimed by the writ petitioner. That issue remains to be decided ....

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....ion had been heard before the orders were issued. He invited our attention to the merits of the claim. It is argued that the order .dated March 19,1990 must, in the circumstances, be treated to have become final and, therefore, binding on the State and the High Court was right in issuing the further direction by way of implementation of earlier order. We do not agree. The scope of a contempt proceeding is very different from that of the pending main case yet to be heard and disposed of (in future). Besides, the respondents in a pending case are at a disadvantage if they are called upon to meet the merits of the claim in a contempt proceeding at the risk of being punished. It is, therefore, not right to suggest that it should be assumed t....