HISTORICAL VIEWS OF CONTEMPT OF COURT IN UK
Despite the fact that the crime of ostracising the judiciary is based on common law, no one has been convicted for it in the England since 1931.
A century later, Lord Morris was on the panel deciding McLeod v. St. Aubin. It was about a media reporting agency storey that was going about in Trinidad and Tobago at the time. The island of St. Vincent, according to an article in The Federalist, suffers from "misadministration of justice." He opined that one of the justices, Justice St. Aubyn, was "reducing the judiciary's dignity to that of a clown."
According to the report, the judge "lollies with two or three of the advocates, winks pointedly at them in courtroom, and in the hearing of cases, he has thrown to the winds the usual conceptions of fairness and fair play that require a judge to keep the scales of justice even between parties."
In deciding this case, Lord Morris made a brilliantly foresighted statement, stating that public sentiment or remarks that are derisive or scandalous to the judicial branch must be left to the public, and that tribunals should leave unanswered public sentiment-attacks or remarks derisive or scandalous to the judiciary to the public.
This demonstrates that the Privy Council thought the English judiciary was mature enough to face media criticism in 1899. Only in its colonies did it consider scandalising to be a legitimate means of punishing contempt. This was either part of the "white man's burden," or it was simply a better way to administer justice in a culture where the government was seen as alien and harsh by the population.
The Queen's Bench Division held in R v. Commissioner of Metropolis, Ex parte Blackburn, in 1968, that any criticism of the judiciary, no matter how harshly phrased, was not incompliant as long as it was committed in good conscience.
The 2012 Law Commission Consultation Paper on Scandalising the Court provides insight into current issues in the United Kingdom about Contempt by Scandalizing. It weighed the pros and cons of keeping the offence, changing it, or repealing it entirely. The authors of the report believe that the crime must be completely removed. They opined that protecting the judiciary from criticism by the media may only serve to weaken its power. They also stated that judges have alternative options, such as filing defamation lawsuits. This will also have the effect of moving the financial weight of the proceedings from the state to the judges' own funds.The paper's major point was that the offence should be repealed merely because it is outmoded and has fallen out of favour.
HISTORY OF CONTEMPT OF COURT IN INDIA
In India, the roots of defiance of the court legislation may be dated back to pre-independence times. The East India Company seized control of India's lands, prompting King George III to issue the Charter of 1726, which established a Corporation in each Presidency Town.
This Charter is regarded as a landmark point in the history of India's legal system since it presented English laws to the country. Mayor Courts were established in each of the Presidency Towns, and they were designated as Courts of Record, with the authority to hear all civil cases in the town and its subordinate districts.
Following the Regulating Act of 1773, the Mayor's Court in Calcutta was replaced by the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William, Calcutta, in 1774.
The Recorder's Courts in Madras and Bombay supplanted the Mayor's Courts, within the Government of India Act, 1800, these courts were eventually disbanded and supplanted by the Supreme Courts.
The Supreme Court of Madras was established in 1801 by the Charter of 1800, whilst the Supreme Court of Bombay was established in 1824 by the Charter of 1823. In regards of punishment for contempt, the Recorder's Courts and Supreme Courts possessed the same authority as the superior courts in England.
The Indian High Courts Act of 1861 replaced the Supreme Courts with the High Courts. Contempt might be punished in the High Courts of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras.
The Contempt of Court Act, 1926 (also known as the Act 1926) was one of India's first contempt statutes. Section 2 of this Act recognised that all High Courts have the ability to punish itself for contempt, as well as giving the High Court the authority to punish subordinate courts for contempt. significant changes from the previous Act. Following the debates, the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 (70 of 1971), which repealed and replaced the Act 1952, was enacted (hence referred to as the Act 1971). The Act of 1971, for example, divides contempt into two categories: civil contempt and criminal contempt, with particular definitions for each. It also established a few exclusions, establishing procedures reflecting on court happenings and making comments on them which are not subject to the Act's restrictions.