Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Prem Prasad Varma vs Swaraj Swadesh Saikia . on 1 May, 2014
Ö+ITEM NO.37 COURT NO.10 SECTION XIV
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (Civil) No(s).17067/2010
(From the judgement and order dated 09/06/2010 in WA No.16/2010 of
The HIGH COURT OF GUWAHATI ,ASSAM)
PREM PRASAD VARMA Petitioner(s)
VERSUS
SWARAJ SWADESH SAIKIA & ORS. Respondent(s)
(With appln(s) for permission to file SLP and prayer for interim
relief and office report )
Date: 01/05/2014 This Petition was called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE SUDHANSU JYOTI MUKHOPADHAYA
HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE VIKRAMAJIT SEN
For Petitioner(s)
Mr. Jaideep Gupta, Sr. Adv.
Mr. Azim H. Laskar, Adv.
Mr. Sachin Das, Adv.
Mr. Abhijit Sengupta,Adv.
For Respondent(s)
Mr. Vishal Arun ,Adv.
UPON hearing counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
Permission to file SLP is granted.
Leave granted.
The appeal is allowed.
[ Neeta ] [ Usha Sharma] Sr. P.A. Court Master 1 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CIVIL APPEAL NO.5007 OF 2014 (Arising out of SLP(C) No. 17067/2010) PREM PRASAD VARMA Appellant(s) VERSUS SWARAJ SWADESH SAIKIA & ORS. Respondent(s) O R D E R Permission to file SLP is granted.
Leave granted.
This appeal has been preferred by appellant- former Principal Secretary to the Government of Assam, Health and Family Welfare Department against the order dated 9th June, 2010 passed by the Division Bench of High Court of Guwahati, Assam in Writ Appeal No. 16 of 2010. By the impugned order the High Court has observed that the order passed by the department dated 4th October, 2006 is perverse and affidavit filed by the appellant apparently false and thereby issued notice to appellant through the counsel for the State to show cause why appropriate action under Contempt of Courts Act and under Section 340 of the Cr.P.C. be not initiated against him with further direction to appear in-person before the Court on the fixed date.
The appellant has challenged the order on one of the grounds that the High Court made observations against the appellant though he was not impleaded as respondent by name.
From the record it is clear that the writ appeal was 2 preferred by the respondent-Swaraj Swadesh Saikia before the Division Bench of the High Court challenging the order passed by the learned Single Judge whereby learned Singh Judge held that the report submitted by the Principal Secretary was justified, who distinguished the case of one Md. Asif qua the other 12 persons including Swaraj Swadesh Saikia. No allegation of bias was made against the Principal Secretary or the appellant by name. After submission of the report, if the Division Bench was of the opinion that the report was incorrect or there is some other infirmity in the same, in that case it was always open to the High Court to implead the individual as party respondent by name before making any adverse comment against the Officer.
Admittedly, the appellant was not a party respondent by name in the writ petition or writ appeal. No allegation of bias was levelled by the first respondent-writ petitioner against the appellant even in regard to the affidavit filed by the appellant in capacity of Principal Secretary. In such circumstances the Division Bench was not correct in making any observation by directing initiation of contempt proceedings or proceedings under Section 340 Cr.P.C.
Further, what we find is that the Division Bench has neither discussed in detail as to which part of the affidavit was wrong, not based on record and/or was false, nor given any reason to come to such conclusion that a prima facie case for initiation of contempt proceedings or proceedings under Section 340 Cr. P.C. was made out.
3
In these circumstances while we do not appreciate the manner in which the Division Bench proceeded in the matter, set aside the impugned order dated 9th June, 2010 passed by the High Court of Guwahati, Assam.
The appeal is allowed.
.............................J. (SUDHANSU JYOTI MUKHOPADHAYA) ...........................J. (VIKRAMAJIT SEN) NEW DELHI;
MAY 01, 2014