Jammu & Kashmir High Court: A Division Bench of Ali Mohammad Magrey and Dhiraj Singh Thakur, JJ. disposed of the appeal after asking the Writ Court to hear the parties and decide the writ petition on merits, expeditiously.
An appeal was filed by the appellant (who is the respondent 7 in the connected writ petition), against the order dated 23-10-2019 passed by the learned Single Judge in the contempt petition arising out of Other Writ Petition (OWP) filed by the respondent’s 8 to 11.
The appellant stated that the respondents 8 to 11 had filed an OWP, wherein the learned Single Judge, in terms of order dated 10-01-2019, while issuing notice to the respondents, observed that pendency of the writ petition shall not come in the way of the official respondents in making further follow up under law in pursuance to NIT No. 64/02/EEP/R&B/2018-19 dated 27th of June, 2018. Thereafter, alleging non-compliance of the aforesaid order passed by the learned single Judge, the writ petitioners/ respondents 8 to 11 filed a contempt petition, wherein the learned single Judge, in terms of order dated 23-10-2019, i.e., directed that the Additional Deputy Commissioner, Pulwama, was to take immediate steps to provide security to the Executing Agency so that the execution work undertaken by the Executive Engineer, R&B, Division Pulwama, with respect to pathway in question went unhindered.
The appellant submitted that the contempt petition had arisen out of the ad-interim order passed in writ petition filed by the respondents 8 to 11 wherein the learned Single Judge has only made observation that pendency of the writ petition shall not come in the way of the official respondents in making further follow up under law, however, the learned Single Judge had gone beyond the scope of contempt jurisdiction by issuing further directions for providing security to the Executing Agency.
The Court found force in the submissions of the appellant and, therefore, ordered that the impugned order was set aside; since the consideration in the contempt petition was deferred. Accordingly, the appeal was disposed of along with the connected petitions. [Ghulam Hassan Rather v. UTof J&K, 2019 SCC OnLine J&K 913, decided on 02-12-2019]
