In Attorney General v. Times Newspapers, [1974] A.C. 273 at p. 302 the necessity for the law of contempt was summarised by Lord Morris as: In Attorney–General v. B.B.C., [1980] 3 ALR 16 1 the House of Lords proceeded on the assumption that a court of record possesses protective jurisdiction to indict a person for interference with the administration of justice in the inferior courts but it refused to indict as it held that this protection is available to a court exercising judicial power of the State and not to a Tribunal even though the same may be inferior to the court of record.

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View tables of cases and legislation referred to it the text sorted alphabetically, and link directly to them The High Court being a court of record has inherent power in respect of contempt of itself as well as of its subordinate courts even in the absence of any express provision in any Act. A fortiori the Supreme Court being the Apex Court of the country and superior court of record should possess the same inherent jurisdiction and power for taking action for contempt of itself, as well as, for the contempt of subordinate and inferior courts.” The Act resolved the doubt by recognising to the power of High Courts in regard to contempt of subordinate courts, by enacting Section 2 which expressly stated that the High Courts will continue to have jurisdiction and power with regard to contempt of subordinate courts as they exercised with regard to their own contempt. Thus the Act reiterated and recognised the High Court’s power as a court of record for taking action for contempt of courts subordinate to them. Provides a concise, but comprehensive and authoritative, definition of each expression which forms part of the fabric of English law The judgment prepared with great learning and erudition could not be delivered as the proceedings were dropped following the change of Government. After long interval Wilmot’s judgment was published in 1802. The judgment proceeded on the assumption that the superior Common Law Courts did have the power to indict a person for contempt of court, by following a summary procedure on the principle that this power was ‘a necessary incident to every court of justice’.

Madras High Court in the case of Venkat Rao, 21 Madras Law Journal 832 held that it being a court of record had the power to deal with the contempt of subordinate courts.Section 3 of the 1952 Act again reiterated and reaffirmed the power, authority and jurisdiction of the High Court in respect of contempt of courts subordinate to it, as it existed prior to the enactment. It provided that every High Court shall have and exercise the same jurisdiction, power and authority, in accordance with the same procedure and practice in respect of contempt of courts subordinate to it as it has and exercise in respect of contempt of itself. Article 129 declares the Supreme Court a court of record and it further provides that the Supreme Court shall have all the powers of such a court including the power to punish for contempt of itself. Gives a distillation of legal concepts providing a first point of reference for research or for understanding an unfamiliar area of law

It is open to the Court to cross-examine the contemner and even if the contemner is found to be guilty of contempt, the Court may accept apology and discharge the notice of contempt, whereas tendering of apology is no defence to the trial of a criminal offence. This peculiar feature distinguishes contempt proceedings from criminal proceedings. In a criminal trial where a person is accused of an offence there is a public prosecutor who prosecutes the case on behalf of the prosecution against the accused but in contempt proceedings the court is both the accused as well as the judge of the accusation. Another manner of division is into courts of record and courts not of record. Certain Courts are expressly declared by statute to be courts of record. In the case of courts not expressly declared to be courts of record, the answer to the question whether a court is a court of record seems to depend in general upon whether it has power to fine or imprison, by statute or otherwise, for contempt of itself or other substantive offences; if it has such power, it seems that it is a court of record…….. proceedings of a Court of record preserved in its archives are called records, and are conclusive evidence of that which is recorded therein.” HistoryThis title is typically used in conjunction with Stroud’s Judicial Dictionary and is regularly cited to and by the courts. Since, the Supreme Court is designed by the Constitution as a court of record and as the Founding Fathers were aware that a superior court of record had inherent power to indict a person for the contempt of itself as well as of courts inferior to it, the expression “including” was deliberately inserted in the Article. Article 129 recognised the existing inherent power of a court of record in its full plenitude including the power to punish for the contempt of inferior courts. Lccn 2010497308 Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-1-g862e Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 1.0000 Ocr_module_version 0.0.14 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-WL-2000073 Openlibrary_edition Includes medical ebooks previously available through the Oxford Medicine Online platform. To access medicine content, select "Subject" -> "Medicine and Health". The question whether in the absence of any express provision a Court of Record has inherent power in respect of contempt of subordinate or inferior courts, has been considered by English and Indian Courts.

The only exception to this power, was made in subsection (3) of Section 2 which provided that no High Court shall take cognizance of a contempt alleged to have been committed in respect of a court subordinate to it where such contempt is an offence punishable under the Indian Penal Code. Section 3 of the Act restricted the punishment which could be passed by the High Court. Since doubt was raised whether the High Court as a court of record could punish contempt of itself and of courts subordinate to it if contempt was committed outside its territorial jurisdiction, the Parliament enacted the Contempt of Courts Act 1952 removing the doubt. Contempt of Courts Act 1952urn:lcp:jowittsdictionar0001unse:epub:dac836c0-c3e8-45b2-9351-a89f8f638093 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier jowittsdictionar0001unse Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t25c2zc4w Invoice 1652 Isbn 9780414051140