The High Court
Case Details
IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK CONTC No.1872 of 2025 Upendra Seth & Ors. -Versus- Smt. Anu Garg, IAS, Commissioner- cum-Secretary, Department of Irrigation and Water Resources, Government of Odisha …. Petitioners Represented by Adv.– Mr. P.K. Chand, Advocate …. Opposite Party
Legal Reasoning
Represented by Adv.– Mr. Kailash Chandra Kar. Govt. Advocate (State) CORAM: HON’ BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE AND HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE G.SATAPATHY Order No.
Decision
ORDER 07.11.2025 03. 1. Alleging against the contemnor for willful and deliberate disobedience of the order dated 04.03.2024 passed by this Court in W.P(C) No.2833 of 2019, the petitioners have filed this civil contempt. 2. Heard Mr. Pramod Kumar Chand, learned counsel for the petitioners and Mr. Kailash Chandra Kar, learned Addl. Govt. Advocate in the matter and perused the record. Page 1 of 5 3. After having considered the rival submissions upon perusal of records, indisputably it appears that this Court by way of an order dated 04.03.2024 passed in W.P(C) No.2833 of 2019 has interalia issued the following directions:- “Considering the limited nature of grievance made by the petitioners and after hearing learned counsel for the parties, this Court, without expressing any opinion on the merits of the case, disposes of the Writ Petition directing Opposite party No.1 to consider and dispose of the representation filed by the petitioners vide Annexure-11 and pass appropriate order as early as possible within a period of three months from the date of production of certified copy of this order.” 4. Pursuant to the above directions, the petitioners claiming non-compliance of the order passed in the writ petition has invoked the contempt jurisdiction of this Court in this contempt petition, but on first motion for contempt, the contemnor being represented by learned Addl. Govt. Advocate took time to file an affidavit and accordingly, the contemnor filed a compliance affidavit by serving a copy thereof on the learned counsel for the petitioner, who after going through the same has not filed any reply thereto to dispute compliance of the order passed in the writ petition. In the compliance affidavit, the alleged contemnor has inter alia stated about the compliance of the order passed in the writ petition by attaching the Page 2 of 5 order no.27135 of 2025 dated 23.09.2025 under Annexure-A/3 and the relevant paragraph of such compliance affidavit is reproduced below:- “5. That, since the Opp. Party have already considered the representation of the petitioners and passed a reasoned Speaking Order vide order No.27135, dated 23.09.2025. Copy of the Speaking Order is Annexure-A/3.” 5. For clarity, the relevant paragraphs of Annexure-A/3 which was passed by the Development Commissioner-cum-Addl. Chief Secretary Department of Water Resources (DoWR) are extracted as under:- “Whereas, in the absence of any Government Circular/Policy, the RPDAC recommended vide letter No. 121 dated 15.01.2009 their case to Government in DoWR (Department of Water Resources) for case based assistance. Considering the recommendation the Government in DoWR sanctioned vide letter No. 9448 dated 10.03.2012(Annexure- 4) an amount of Rs.2,296,00,000/- (Two Crore Ninety Six Lakh) only as ex-gratia and the same was paid to the displaced families. Whereas, now, again, after a gap of seven years, the petitioners have demanded for further monetary assistance in the form of ex-gratia on the ground that some people are left out and they have filed a writ petition in the Hon’ble High Court. Whereas, it is surprising to find that some members who have signed in the proceeding of the Task Force Committee who is finalized the list of beneficiaries are also petitioners in the writ petition. Page 3 of 5 Hence, considering the background of the case, it is convincing that opportunity of hearing have already been given to the members of the displaced families and they have already been paid financial assistance to the tune of Rs.2,296,00,000/- (Two Crore Ninety Six Lakh) only. Therefore, the representation of the villagers submitted as on 05.11.2018 merits no consideration and thus, hereby rejected.” 6. On a careful scrutiny of the order passed in WP(C) No.2833 of 2019, it was imperative for the contemnor to consider and dispose of the representation of the petitioners and pass appropriate order thereon as early as possible within a period of three months from the date of production of certified copy of such order, but the order on the representation of the petitioners was in fact passed on 23.09.2025, which may be considered as delayed compliance, however, it cannot be considered as non-compliance of the order passed in the writ petition. 7. Besides, a person cannot be held liable for contempt of Courts, unless it is established that the alleged non- compliance/disobedience of the order as contemplated U/S.2(b) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 by the contemnor must be willful, intentional, deliberate and conscious. In the present case at hand, the learned counsel for the petitioners contends to ventilate the only Page 4 of 5 grievance for the petitioners to have not yet been paid with their legitimate due in consonance with the Government rule and if that be so, the petitioners may pursue their remedy in accordance with law. 8. In view of the order passed by the alleged contemnor under Annexure-A/3 disposing the representation of the petitioners in terms of the order passed by this Court in WP(C) No.2833 of 2019 and taking into account the uncontroverted averments of compliance of affidavit, it can by no stretch of imagination be considered that the alleged contemnor has willfully and deliberately disobeyed the order passed by this Court in the writ petition to make her liable for civil contempt. The order alleged to have been not complied with by the contemnor, having already been complied, the petition for civil contempt is liable to be dropped. 9. In the result, the civil contempt petition is accordingly dropped. It is, however, open to the petitioners to seek for further remedy in accordance with the law. (Harish Tandon) Chief Justice (G. Satapathy) Judge Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: JAYAKRUSHNA DASH Reason: Authentication Location: High Court of Orissa, Cuttack Date: 10-Nov-2025 19:05:51 Page 5 of 5