By Rana Ajit
New Delhi, Nov 1 (IANS) Punishing a person summarily and instantly for an obvious and self-evident act of contempt against higher courts is just and fair, the Supreme Court has held.

A bench headed by Justice Altmas Kabir ruled that to convict someone committing the contempt “in the face of the court”, the higher courts need not follow the long-drawn procedure of statutory trial, devised to uphold the principle of natural justice, which stipulates that no court can punish a person without hearing him.

The bench gave this significant ruling recently while jailing four women officials of a Mumbai-based music school for throwing a slipper on March 20 at former Justice Arijit Pasayat in court.

The apex court ruling, while justifying Pasayat’s March 20 act of jailing the four women instantly after the slipper-hurling incident, disapproved of the stand of its other judge, Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly, that no contemnor could be convicted without proper trial, as mandated by section 14 of the Contempt to Court Act, 1971.

Sitting on the same bench, Ganguly saw the footwear-throwing incident but differed with Pasayat’s act of inflicting summary punishment. So, the women were given bail and the spilt verdict of the bench was referred to the bench headed by Kabir.

In his Oct 21 verdict, the details of which were released late last week, Kabir and fellow judges Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice H.L. Dattu said: “Where an incident of the instant nature takes place within the presence and sight of the judges, the same amounts to contempt in the face of the court and is required to be dealt with at the time of the incident itself.

“This is necessary for the dignity and majesty of the courts to be maintained. When an object, such as a footwear, is thrown at the presiding officer in a court proceeding, the object is not to merely scandalise or humiliate the judge, but to scandalise the institution itself and thereby lower its dignity in the eyes of the public.”

(Rana Ajit can be contacted at rana.ajit@ians.in)