Report No. 274

C. Circumventing the Judgment / Order of the Court

5.18 Criminal contempt in the most general sense of the term includes contemptuous actions that interfere or tend to with the due course of justice, in turn including any action that circumvents a judgment or order of the Court.

5.19 Emphasizing on the foregoing, the Supreme Court in Reliance Petrochemicals Ltd. v. Proprietors of Indian Express Newspapers, Bombay Pvt. Ltd. & Ors., AIR 1989 SC 190, observed that the public interest demands that there should be no interference with judicial process and the effect of the judicial decision should not be pre-empted or circumvented by public agitation or publications. The Court in this case also emphasized on the importance of assessing contempt in the light of the facts of the case, opining that while ensuring that the due course of justice remains unimpaired, the question of contempt must be judged in a particular situation.