The Jharkhand High Court at Ranchi has recently dismissed the contempt petition of Directorate General of Goods and Services Tax (Intelligence), filed instead of pursuing arrest or other coercive measures as it was withdrawn.
Allegedly, there is a fraud of Rs. 400 crore of public money which led the petitioner to file a writ petition No. 14 of 2019. was filed seeking a direction by issuing writ arising of the criminal proceeding.
The instant contempt case was filed, under Section 11 and 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act read with Article 215 of the Constitution of India, has been filed for initiation of proceedings for alleged, willful and deliberate noncompliance and non-appearance of the accused, Nikit Mittal in regard to the order passed in the earlier writ petition by the Jharkhand High Court.
In the said petition, the direction was not to arrest the accused on the first day of appearance.
The court has asked the petitioner counsel, enquiring, “when there is a specific direction passed by the writ court to the effect that there shall be no arrest on the first day of appearance and if the writ petitioner, namely, Nikit Mittal has not appeared before the concerned Officer, what action has been taken by the Senior Intelligence Officer for securing his appearance in order to proceed further in the proceeding which was the subject matter of the writ petition.”
However, no positive response was given by Ratnesh Kumar, the petitioner counsel.
The Single Bench of Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad expressed his view that the court failed to understand “what is the occasion for the petitioner to file this contempt case instead of taking coercive measure for securing the appearance of the litigant.”
The petitioner subsequently submitted that the permission to withdraw the contempt case may be given.
Resultantly, the Jharkhand High Court dismissed the contempt case as withdrawn.
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