Context:

The initiation of proceedings for criminal contempt of court against lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan has once again brought under focus the necessity for retaining the law of contempt as it stands today.

Provisions in India regarding Contempt of Court

• The expression ‘contempt of court’ has not been defined by the Constitution.
• As per the Contempt of Courts Act 1971, contempt refers to the offense of showing disrespect to the dignity or authority of a court. The act divides contempt into:
  • Civil contempt: It is ‘wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other processes of a Court or willful breach of an undertaking given to the court’.
  • Criminal contempt: It is ‘the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which:
    • Scandalises or tend to scandalize, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court.
    • Prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with the due course of any judicial proceeding.
    • Interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner.’
• Bar Association vs. Union of India case, the Supreme Court dwelled into the constitutional powers vested in it under Article 129 read with Article 142(2) of the Constitution of India and the power of the High Court under Article 215 of the Constitution to punish for contempt.
• Article 129: Grants Supreme Court the power to punish for contempt of itself.
• Article 142(2): Enables the Supreme Court to investigate and punish any person for its contempt.
• Article 215: Grants every High Court the power to punish for contempt of itself.