Kanwar Singh Saini v. High Court of Delhi

The appellant had sold property in Village Khirki, New Delhi. In the purchaser's suit for an injunction, he stated that he would not dispossess the plaintiff, and the suit was disposed of in terms of the parties' statements. The purchaser later filed an application in the decided suit alleging that the appellant had broken the locks and taken possession. The civil court referred the matter to the High Court as criminal contempt, and the High Court convicted the appellant and sentenced him to four months' simple imprisonment.

Writing for the Court, Chauhan J. held that once a suit is decreed, any interim order merges in the decree, and an application under Order XXXIX Rule 2A is no longer maintainable; the remedy for breach of the decree is execution under Order XXI Rule 32. Contempt jurisdiction cannot be used to enforce a decree passed in a civil suit.

Breach of an undertaking given to a court is contempt in the same way as breach of an injunction, but this dispute concerned private rights for which the Code provided an adequate remedy, and the conduct alleged could at most have been civil, not criminal, contempt. Contempt proceedings are quasi-criminal, so the standard of proof and safeguards of a criminal trial apply; here the proceedings had been conducted in a casual and cavalier manner.