CONTEMPT OF COURT EXPLAINED
TERMINOLOGY
Anything that restricts or restricts the scope of judicial procedures must inevitably impede the administration of justice and interfere with the due course of justice. This is a clear case of contempt of court. Contempt, according to Oswald, is defined as any act that tends to disdain or reject the authority and administration of the law, or to interfere with or bias parties or their witnesses during litigation. Contempt, according to Halsbury, is defined as "words spoken or written that hinder or tend to impair the administration of justice." It constitutes contempt of court to broadcast remarks that seek to throw the administration of justice into disrepute, to prejudice the fair trial of any cause or issue that is the subject of a Civil or Criminal procedure, or to impede the cause of justice in any way, according to Black Odgers.
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In India, Section 2(a) of the Contempt of Courts Act of 1971 defines contempt of court as either civil or criminal contempt. However, it is widely believed that the present legislation on contempt of courts is ambiguous, imprecise, and inadequate.
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Contempt of court can be either civil or criminal, according to the Contempt of Courts Act of 1971.
Willful disobedience of a court's judgement, decree, directive, order, writ, or other process, or willful breach of an undertaking provided to a court, is referred to as civil contempt.
The publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever that:
(i) scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of any court;
(ii) prejudices the due course of any judicial procedure, or interferes or tends to interfere with the administration of justice in any other way; or
(iii) interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other way.
The government introduced an amendment in 2006 that now allows "truth" to be used as a defence if it is genuine and in the public good.
BRIEF HISTORY
The notion of contempt of court has been around for millennia. It is a common law principle in England that tries to safeguard the king's judicial power, which was first exercised by him and then by a panel of judges acting in his name. It was considered an insult to the monarch himself if the judges' commands were disobeyed. Judges' disobedience, obstruction of their commands' fulfilment, and words and acts that expressed disdain for them all became unlawful throughout time.
The classical argument in favor of this system is contained in the undelivered judgment of Justice Wilmot in the case R. v. Almon.
"By our constitution, the King is the fountain of every species of justice which is administered in this kingdom. The King is de jure to distribute justice to all his subjects; and because he cannot do it himself to all persons, he delegates his power to his idles, who have the custody and guard of the King's oath and sit in the seat of the king 'concerning his justice'. The arraignment of the justice of the judges is arraigning se King's justice; it is an impeachment of his wisdom and goodness in the choice of his idles and excites in the mind of the people a general dissatisfaction with all judicial terminations and indisposes their mind to obey them; and whenever men's allegiance > the laws is so fundamentally shaken, it is the most vital and the most dangerous obstruction of justice, and, in my opinion, calls out for a more rapid and immediate :dress than any other obstruction whatever, not for the sake of judges as private individuals, but because they are the channels by which the King's justice is conveyed to see people". This view has been cited with the greatest approval of numerous authorities in England and India.' But it enshrines a principle which is clearly antiquated and which is unrelated to any modern theory of state organization.