Transferred contempt pleas to lie before CAT only: HC

Srinagar, Feb 7: The High Court of J&K and Ladakh has held that contempt proceedings initiated by the High Court in response to petitions that were subsequently transferred to Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) would lie only before the Tribunal.

A bench of Justice Sanjay Dhar dismissed as “not maintainable” a contempt plea before it, saying it is the Central Administrative Tribunal only to deal with the same.

The Court said this while dealing with a petition the subject matter of which fell within the definition of ‘service matters’ as contained in Section 3(q) of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 which become applicable to the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, after coming into force of the J&K Re-organization Act, 2019 from 31 October 2019.

Through the medium of the petition, the aggrieved petitioner had complained about violation of interim order dated 29 December 2020 whereby authorities were directed to entertain his joining report against a particular post.

The Court observed that a coordinate bench of court has already dealt with the question as to whether Central AdministrativeTribunal has power and authority to punish for contempt in relation to an interim order passed by the High Court in a writ petition which was subsequently transferred to it.

“A Co-ordinate Bench of this Court held that contempt proceedings in relation to orders passed by this Court in the petitions, which subsequently stand transferred to the Tribunal under Section 29 of the Act, shall lie only and only before the Tribunal under Section 17 of the Act,” the court said. The Court accordingly, dismissed the petition with liberty to the petitioner to approach the Central Administrative Tribunal by way of an application under Section 17 of the Act read with Contempt of Courts (CAT) Rules, 1992.