Dibakar Satpathy vs Hon'Ble The Chief Justice and Judges of the Orissa High Court

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: supreme-court

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 2 of 1960

Decision Date: 14 March, 1961

Coram: J.R. Mudholkar, Raghubar Dayal

In this case the Supreme Court of India delivered its judgment on 14 March 1961, the opinion being written by Justice J.R. Mudholkar and the bench also comprising Justice K. Dayal and Justice Raghubar Dayal. The petition was filed by Dibakar Satpathy, who at the material time held the post of Under‑Secretary to the Board of Revenue, Orissa, and the respondents were the Chief Justice and the Judges of the Orissa High Court. The citation of the decision is 1961 AIR 1315 and 1962 SCR (1) 326, and the matter concerned the provisions of the Contempt of Court Act. The headnote summarised that the appellant had circulated to the District Magistrates the opinions of the Legal Remembrancer and the Advocate General together with an endorsement directing the magistrates to follow a procedure contrary to that indicated by the High Court until the matter was taken up by the High Court, thereby seeking to set aside the confusion created by the Orissa High Court decision reported in All India Reporter 1951 Orissa 40. The Court held that such conduct amounted to a clear case of contempt, because the appellant directed the magistrates to ignore a decision that was binding on them, constituting a flagrant interference with the administration of justice by the courts. The judgment was rendered under criminal appellate jurisdiction as Criminal Appeal No. 2 of 1960, filed by special leave from the Orissa High Court order dated 19 February 1958 in Original Criminal Miscellaneous Case No. 8 of 1957. Counsel for the appellant were A.V. Viswanatha Sastri, H.R. Khanna and T.M. Sen, while the respondent side was represented by the Additional Solicitor General of India, B.M. Patnaik, S.N. Andley, J.B. Dadachanji and Rameshwar Nath. The factual matrix recorded that on 19 January 1955 the appellant circulated to the District Magistrates of the Northern Division of Orissa a document containing the opinions of the Legal Remembrancer and the Advocate General, together with an endorsement stating that the Law Department considered no special authorization necessary for magistrates to take cognizance under section 20 of the Cattle Trespass Act and that this procedure could be followed until the issue was finally decided by the High Court so that the confusion caused by the earlier High Court judgment might be resolved. The endorsement bore the appellant’s signature. When the High Court became aware of this endorsement it issued notices not only to the Under‑Secretary but also to the Legal Remembrancer, requiring them to show cause why they should not be held in contempt. Both parties tendered apologies; the High Court acquitted the Legal Remembrancer but convicted the appellant, admonishing him and ordering him to pay the costs of the proceedings. The Supreme Court affirmed that the appellant was rightly found guilty of contempt of court, upheld the admonition and the cost order, and emphasized that directing magistrates to disregard a binding High Court decision undermines the proper functioning of the judicial system.

The High Court issued notices not only to the Under‑Secretary of the Board of Revenue but also to the Legal Remembrancer of Orissa, requiring each of them to show cause why they should not be held in contempt. Both authorities complied with the requirement and filed show‑cause submissions. After considering those submissions, the High Court exonerated the Legal Remembrancer but found the appellant guilty of contempt, sentencing him to an admonition as earlier described. It is noteworthy that both the Legal Remembrancer and the appellant had presented formal apologies before the Court. Nevertheless, the Court affirmed that the appellant’s conviction for contempt of court was proper, that the admonition was justified, and that he must also bear the costs incurred in the proceedings.

The substantive question that prompted the Legal Remembrancer’s opinion concerned the interpretation of statutory authority. Specifically, the inquiry was whether a magistrate who had been delegated authority by a District Magistrate to take cognizance of offences under section 190 of the Code of Criminal Procedure could be treated as a magistrate authorised by the District Magistrate for the purposes envisioned by section 20 of the Cattle Trespass Act. In the endorsement cited by the appellant, the Orissa High Court had adopted the view expressed in Raghu Singh v. Abdul Wahab (1896) I.L.R. 23 Cal. 442, namely that such authorisation was indispensable. That decision had later been dissented from in Budhan Mahto v. Issur Singh, a dissent that apparently had not been brought to the notice of the Orissa High Court. When the matter was referred to the Legal Remembrancer, he submitted a note which the High Court described as ambiguous and incomplete, failing to address all consequential and ancillary questions. Despite the inadequacy of that note, the appellant, in his endorsement, directed magistrates to disregard the High Court’s binding decision. The Court held without doubt that this directive constituted a flagrant interference with the administration of justice and amounted to clear contempt of court. Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed and the appellant’s conviction and admonition were affirmed.