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PETITIONER: BHARAT COKlNG COAL LIMITED

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: STATE OF BIHAR & ORS.

DATE OF JUDGMENT10/11/1987

BENCH: SEN, A.P. (J) BENCH: SEN, A.P. (J) RAY, B.C. (J)

CITATION:  1988 AIR  127            1988 SCR  (1) 869  1987 SCC  Supl.  394     JT 1987 (4)   403  1987 SCALE  (2)1015

ACT:      The Contempt  of Courts  Act, 1971: Section 2-order for maintenance of  status quo  as in  the High  Court-Passed by Supreme Court-Suppression  of the  order from the High Court and obtaining  of another order-Whether amounts to contempt- Scope and effect of status quo order.      Words & Phrases: ’Status quo’- Meaning of.

HEADNOTE: %      It  was   alleged,  in   the  petition  for  initiating proceedings for  contempt, that  despite the  fact that this Court passed  an order  on 19.12.86 directing maintenance of ’status quo  as in  the High  Court’ in  the presence of the counsel for respondent No. 4 on December 22, 1986 respondent No. 4  and his son filed a miscellaneous petition before the High Court,  deliberately and  wilfully suppressing  from it the fact  that this Court had directed maintenance of status quo, and  obtained an  order dated  January 3, 1987 in their favour, and  had thus  wilfully and flagrantly disobeyed and violated the status quo order of this Court.      This Court  on September 23, 1987 vacated the aforesaid order of  the High Court and restrained respondent No. 4 and his  son   and  their   agents  and  servants  from  lifting sludge/slurry from  the lands in question. This Court was of the view that there was no contempt.      Giving reasons for its decision, ^      HELD: The expression ’status quo’ is undoubtedly a term of  ambiguity   and  at   times  gives  rise  to  doubt  and difficulty. According  to the ordinary legal connotation the term implies  existing state of things at any given point of time. The  qualifying words  ’as in  the High Court’ clearly limit the scope and effect of the status quo order. [872F-G]      In the present case, the High Court determined only one question, namely,  that slurry  was not coal or mineral. The impugned judgment does not adjudicate upon the rights of the parties. It is, therefore, 870 obvious that  status quo  as in  the High  Court cannot mean anything else  except status quo as existing when the matter

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was pending  in the  High  Court  before  the  judgment  was delivered. Both  the parties understood the scope and effect of the  status quo  order as  meaning the  state  of  things existing while the writ petition was still pending i.e. till the delivery  of the  judgment by  the High  Court. [872G-H; 873A-B]      No case  for contempt is made out on the plain terms of the status quo order. The parties were relegated back to the position that  obtained while the writ petition was pending. They were,  therefore, subject  to the  order passed  by the High Court dated January 15, 1985. [873C-D]      The conduct  of respondent  No. 4 for having approached the  High   Court  and   obtained  the   impugned  order  by suppressing the  fact that  this Court had passed the status quo order,  is highly  deprecated. The proper course for him was to  have approached  this Court for clarification, if he had any doubt as to the meaning and effect of the status quo order. [873C]

JUDGMENT:      CIVIL APPELLATE  JURISDICTION: Civil Misc. Petition No. 4673 of 1987. (In C.A. No. 452 1 of 1986).      From the  Judgment and  order dated  20.12.1985 of  the Patna High Court in C.W.J.C. No. 1133 of 1984.      L.N. Sinha and M.L. Verma for the Petitioner.      S.N. Kacker,  S.B. Upadhyay, M.M. Kashyap and Smt. Asha Upadhyay for the Respondents.      The following order of the Court was delivered:                               O R D E R      This is  an  application  made  by  the  appellant  for initiating proceedings for contempt against respondent no. 4 Ram Nath  Singh and  his son  Vijendra Singh.  It is alleged that despite  the fact  that this Court had on 19th December 1986 after  hearing learned  counsel for the parties granted special leave and also passed an order directing maintenance of status  quo as  in the  High Court  in  the  presence  of learned counsel  for respondent no. 4, three days after i.e. On 22nd  December, 1986  respondent no. 4 Ram Nath Singh and his  son  Vijendra  Singh  filed  a  criminal  miscellaneous petition no. 4841/86 (R) 871 before the  Ranchi Bench  of the  Patna High  Court alleging inter alia  that respondent  no. 4  had the right to collect slurry, deliberately  and wilfully  suppressed from the High Court the  fact that  this Court had directed maintenance of status quo,  and thereby  obtained an  order from  the  High Court dated  3rd January,  1987 in  the said  proceedings by which respondent  no. 4  was allowed to transport briquettes from  the  area  in  question  i.e.  Iands  covered  by  the notification issued  under s.  9 of  the Coal  bearing Areas (Acquisition & Development) Act, 1957 including the disputed plot no. 370, and bad thus wilfully and flagrantly disobeyed and violated the status quo order of this Court.      After hearing  learned counsel for the parties at quite some length,  we were  satisfied that the High Court was not justified in  passing the  impugned order. We accordingly by order dated 23rd September, 1987 vacated the aforesaid order of the  High Court  dated 3rd January, 1987 and also allowed the  application  made  by  the  apellant  for  grant  of  a prohibitory order  and restrained  respondent no. 4 Ram Nath Singh and  his son  Vijendra  Singh  and  their  agents  and servants from  lifting sludge/slurry  from the lands covered by the  notification under  s. 9 of the Act, in terms of the

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registered  indenture   of  lease  dated  October  20,  1984 executed by the State Government in favour of respondent no. 4 and  further directed  that all  operations carried  on by them shall  stop forthwith.  There was  a further  direction made with  regard to the withdrawal of the amounts deposited by respondent  no. 4 and his son towards the price of slurry collected by  them in  pursuance of  the order passed by the High Court  dated l5th  January,  1985  on  furnishing  bank guarantee. As the conclusion of the hearing we were inclined to the view that there was no contempt. The reasons therefor follow.      The question  whether respondent  no. 4  Ram Nath Singh and his  son Vijendra  Singh are  guilty of contumacious and wilful disregard  of this  Court’s order  must depend on the precise meaning  of the  words ‘status  quo as  in the  High Court’. There  is not  much of a controversy as to the scope and effect  of the  status quo  order passed  by this Court. Shri L.N. Sinha, learned counsel appearing for the appellant submitted that  the words  ’status quo as in the High Court’ mean status  quo as  prevailing between the parties when the matter was  pending in the High Court and not after the High Court had  passed the  impugned judgment and disposed of the writ  petition.  The  learned  counsel  contends  that  same meaning must  be given  to these  words  as  otherwise,  the application  for   grant  of   prohibitory  order  would  be infructuous and  the order passed by this Court meaningless. He placed emphasis on the 872 word ’in’  in the collocation of the words ’status quo as in the High Court’ to define the scope and effect of the status quo order.  According to him, the word ’in’ must mean status quo while the matter was in the High Court; it was in seisin of the High Court till the moment before the delivery of the final judgment.  Once the  judgment had  been delivered, the matter came  to an  end in  the High Court. In substance, 13 the contention  is that the status quo as prevailing between the parties  when the  matter was  pending in the High Court had to be maintained.      In reply  Shri Kacker,  learned counsel  for respondent no. 4  Ram Nath  Singh and  his son Vijendra Singh submitted that the  words ’status  quo as  in the  High Court’ must be interpreted to  mean that the parties were relegated back to the position  that  obtained  between  them  when  the  writ petition was  still pending.  Upon that  basis he  submitted that the  contemnors were  governed  by  the  terms  of  the earlier order  passed by  the High Court dated 15th January, 1985 permitting  them to  collect sludge/slurry  from public land. It  is urged  that the  disputed plot  no. 370 is such public land  from which  respondent no.  4 in  terms of  the registered  indenture   of  lease  dated  October  20,  1984 executed by the State Government in his favour, was entitled to remove sludge/slurry from the lands covered by the lease. The learned  counsel points out that although respondent no. 4 had been restrained by the High Court by its earlier order dated 19th  October, 1984  from removing  sludge/slurry from the disputed  plot of  land, it  had by the subsequent order dated  15th   January,  1985   permitted  him   to   collect sludge/slurry on  certain conditions.  One of the conditions was that  respondent no. 4 was required to deposit Rs. 10000 in the  High Court  and that had been done. He also drew our attention to  cl.(B) of that order which directed respondent no. 4  to deposit  the price  of slurry  in court along with monthly returns  and it is said that several lakhs of rupees are in deposit in the High Court on that account.      The expression  ’status quo’  is undoubtedly  a term of

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ambiguity and  at times  gives rise to doubt and difficulty. According  to  the  ordinary  legal  connotation,  the  term ’status quo’  implies the  existing state  of things  at any given point  of time.  The qualifying  words ’as in the High Court’ clearly  limit the scope and effect of the status quo order. In  the present  case, the High Court determined only one question,  namely, that  slurry was not coal or mineral. It refrained  from entering  into the  question of  right or title  of  the  parties  on  the  ground  that  it  involved investigation into  disputed questions  of facts. Therefore, apart from the abstract question that slurry was not coal or mineral, the  impugned judgment does not adjudicate upon the rights of the 873 parties. Viewed  from that  angle, it is obvious that status quo as  in the  High Court  cannot mean anything else except status quo  as existing  when the  matter was pending in the High Court  before the  judgment  was  delivered.  Both  the parties understood  the scope  and effect  of the status quo order as meaning the state of things existing while the writ petition was  still pending  i.e. till  the delivery  of the judgment by  the High Court. Respondent no. 4 moved the High Court in  Crl. M.P.  No. 4841/86  (R) without impleading the appellant herein  and obtained  the impugned  order from the High Court dated 3rd January 1987 which we have vacated. The proper course  for respondent  no. 4  to have adopted was to have approached  this Court to seek clarification, if he had any doubt  as to  the meaning  and effect  of the status quo order. We  highly deprecate  the conduct of respondent no. 4 for having  approached  the  High  Court  and  obtained  the impugned order  by suppressing  the fact that this Court had passed the  status quo order. Even so, strictly speaking, no case for  contempt is  made out  on the  plain terms  of the status quo  order. The  parties were  relegated back  to the position that  obtained while the writ petition was pending. They were  therefore subject to the order passed by the High Court dated  15th January,  1985.  No  other  conclusion  is possible looking to the terms of the status quo order.      We must  add that  there is  no merit in the contention that the disputed plot no. 370 was public land and the State Government was  entitled to  grant a  lease for  removal and collection of  sludge/slurry despite the notification issued under s.  9 of  the Act. It is quite clear upon the terms of the notification issued that the Central Government has made the requisite  declaration under  s. 9(1)  of  the  Act  for acquisition of the lands measuring 778.45 acres as specified in Schedule  ’A’ and  it specifically  includes the disputed plot no. 370 in Village Sudamdih. The appellant in paragraph 11 of  the application  for contempt has averred that on the publication in  the official  gazette of such declaration by the Central  Government  under  s.  9(1)  of  the  Act,  the aforesaid  lands   vast  absolutely  in  it  free  from  all encumbrances.  The  aforesaid  declaration  by  the  Central Government under  s. 9(1)  further specifies  as enjoined by cl.(b) of sub-s(2) thereof that the acquisition of the right in or over lands measuring 778.45 acres describe in Schedule ’A’ also  carries with  it the  right to mine, quarry, bore, dig and search for, win, work and carry away minerals in the lands. It  is pertinent to observe that respondent no. 4 Ram Nath Singh  and his  son Vijendra  Singh  have  not  in  the counter-affidavit denied  the  aforesaid  averment  made  in paragraph 11 except to say that they are a matter of record. It is  plain upon  the terms  that the area in question i.e. plot  874

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no. 370  has been acquired under s. 9(1) of the Act together with the  right to  mine, quarry,  bore, dig and search for, win, work and carry away the minerals thereon. lt is idle to contend that  the disputed plot no. 370 was open land. It is nothing but an afterthought and is illconceived.      It is  unfortunate that  the  appellant  rested  itself content by  obtaining the status quo order in terms in which it was  passed. It  should instead have for safeguarding its interests  insisted   upon  a   prohibitory  order.  In  the meanwhile, we  are informed  that respondent  no. 4 Ram Nath Singh and  his son Vijendra Singh have been taking advantage of the  qualified status quo order by removing sludge/slurry or briguettes  worth about  Rs.50,000 per day. The appellant is at  liberty to  take recourse  to such legal remedy as is available for the protection of its rights. We have tried to secure its interests to some extent by permitting withdrawal of the  moneys deposited  by respondent no. 4 Ram Nath Singh and his  son Vijendra  Singh in the High Court on furnishing bank guarantee.      C.M.P. is disposed of accordingly. N.P.V.                                 Petition disposed of. 875