Skip to main content

Contempt Jurisdiction A Necessity, Availability Of Alternative Remedy No Bar To Invoke It

In Contempt Case (Civil) No.1132 of 2018, M/s Lanco Amarkantak Power Ltd., vs South Eastern Coalfields Ltd., Order delivered on: 7-1-2019, the Chattisgarh High Court had earlier restored the award passed by the arbitral tribunal and directed SECL to make payment of the decretal amount to Lanco Amarkantak Power Ltd. As the amount was not paid by SECL, the company had approached the high court invoking contempt jurisdiction.

The respondents raised the preliminary objection that since the execution application is maintainable under Section 36 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act for executing the award passed by the Arbitral Tribunal, therefore, the contempt petition would not be maintainable.

The High Court declared that the jurisdiction to punish for contempt is an inalienable attribute of and inheres in, every superior court of record. This is jurisdiction of necessity. The court also observed that merely because the alternative remedy of laying execution of arbitral award is available, the contempt petition preferred for willful disobedience of the order of high court cannot be thrown out if it appears to the court that the order so passed has been willfully disobeyed by the contemnor.



Comments

Most viewed this month

Appellate authorities under Special Statutes cannot be asked to condone delay

Madras High Court in R.Gowrishankar vs. The Commissioner of Service Tax has held that Appellate authorities cannot be asked to condone the delay, beyond the extended period of limitation A Division Bench comprising of Justices S. Manikumar and D. Krishnakumar, made this observation while considering an appeal filed against Single Bench order declining to set aside the order made in the condone delay petition filed by the petitioner to condone 223 days in filing the appeal before the Commissioner of Service Tax (Appeals). Article referred: http://www.livelaw.in/appellate-authorities-special-statutes-cannot-asked-condone-delay-beyond-extended-period-limitation-madras-hc/

'Seize assets to pay damages to accident victim'

Her story might be an inspiration for the physically challenged but justice has remained elusive for her. In 2008, a bus accident left research engineer S Thenmozhi, 30, paraplegic. In April 2013, the motor accident claims tribunal directed the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) to provide her a compensation of 57.9 lakh. However, TNSTC refused to budge and on Tuesday a city court ordered attaching of movable assets of the transport corporation. Thenmozhi was employed in C-DOT, a telecom technology development centre in Bangalore. On July 21, 2008, she was coming to Chennai in a private bus. Around 2am, the bus had a flat tyre and the driver parked it on the left side of the road near Pallikonda in Vellore district on the Bangalore-Chennai highway. While the tyre was being changed, a TNSTC bus of Dharmapuri division hit the stationary bus. The rear part of the bus was smashed and passengers were injured. Thenmozhi who had a seat at the back of the bus suffered...

Mumbai ITAT rules income of offshore discretionary trust is subject to tax in India

The Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has recently determined the following issue in the affirmative in the case of Manoj Dhupelia: Should the income of an offshore discretionary trust be subject to tax in India, if no distributions have been made to beneficiaries in India? The question arose from appeals filed by individual beneficiaries in relation to a Lichtenstein-based trust, the Ambrunova Trust and Merlyn Management SA (the Trust) with the ITAT. It is important to note that the individuals in this case were amongst those first identified by the Government of India (GOI) as holding undeclared bank accounts in Lichtenstein. The ITAT ruling raises the following issues: Taxation of Trust Corpus: ITAT classified the corpus of the trust as "undisclosed income" and declared it taxable in the hands of the beneficiaries. Taxation of Undistributed Income: ITAT refused to draw a distinction between the corpus and undistributed income from the trust and declared i...