Willful Breach Of Undertaking Given To Court Is Contempt: Supreme Court

Post published:August 23, 2021
Post category:Daily Judgments
Reading time:5 mins read

Wilful Breach Of Undertaking Given To Court Is Contempt

Case: Suman Chadha vs. Central Bank of India

Coram: Justices Indira Banerjee and V. Ramasubramanian

Case No: SLP(C) 28592 of 2018

Court Observation: “It is true that this Court has held in a series of decisions that the wilful breach of the undertaking given to the Court amounts to contempt of Court under Section 2(b) of the Act. But the Court has always seen (i) the nature of the undertaking made; (ii) the benefit if any, reaped by the party giving the undertaking; and (iii) whether the filing of the undertaking was with a view to play fraud upon the court or to hoodwink the opposite party.”

“In Rama Narang (supra), this Court pointed out the distinction between two categories of cases covered by Section 2(b) of the Act namely (i) wilful disobedience to a process of court; and (ii) wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court…This Court went to the extent of holding that it would neither be in consonance with the statute, judicial authority, principle or logic to draw any distinction between the wilful violation of the terms of a consent decree and wilful violation of a decree passed on adjudication. We have our own doubts whether the first category of cases covered by Section 2(b) can be stretched so far. Anyway, that question does not arise in this case and hence we leave it at that.”

“It is also true that normally the question whether a party is guilty of contempt is to be seen in the specific context of the disobedience and the wilful nature of the same and not on the basis of the conduct subsequent thereto. While it is open to the court to see whether the subsequent conduct of the alleged contemnor would tantamount to an aggravation of the contempt already committed, the very determination of an act of contempt cannot simply be based upon the subsequent conduct.. But the subsequent conduct of the party may throw light upon one important aspect namely whether it was just the inability of the party to honour the commitment or it was part of a larger design to hoodwink the court.”