Madras High Court: N. Anand Venkatesh, J., while addressing the contempt petition held that,
“The doctrine of merger does not make a distinction between an order of reversal, modification or an order of confirmation.”
Petitioners Counsel, N.G.R Prasad and Sathish Parasaran, Senior Counsel on behalf of the respondent, represented the parties in the present matter.
Maintainability of Contempt Petition
Court’s view in the present matter was that the Court need not venture into rendering its findings on the contentions raised on either side since the very maintainability of the Contempt Petition is in question.
Final orders were passed in the petition on 06-02-2020, respondent took the matter on appeal in W.A. No. 252 of 2020 and Division Bench dealt with the case on merits and partly allowed the Writ Appeal.
Once an order has been passed in the Writ Appeal and the order passed by the Single Judge is modified and the Writ Appeal is partly allowed, the order of the Single Judge merges with the order passed in the Writ Appeal.
The doctrine of merger does not make a distinction between an order of reversal, modification or an order of confirmation.
Reference to the Supreme Court decisions in Kunhayammed v. State of Kerala, (2000) 6 SCC 359 and Shanthi v. T.D. Vishwanathan, (2019) 11 SCC 419, was made.
Bench in view of the above decisions held that the contempt petition filed before the Single judge is not maintainable since the order of the Single judge has merged with the order passed by the Division Bench in the writ appeal.
Adding to the above, Court also stated that if the petitioner feels that the order has been violated or disobeyed, a Contempt Petition can be maintained only before the Division Bench and not before the Single Judge.
Hence, the Contempt Petition was closed.[All India Union Bank Officer v. Brajeshwar Sharma, Contempt Petition No. 570 of 2020, decided on 31-08-2020]
