Punjab & Haryana HC Dismisses Contempt Petition Filed After Underlying Order Was Set Aside, Imposes ₹50,000 Costs on Petitioners

Justice Sudeepti Sharma dismissed a contempt petition as an abuse of process after the very order alleged to have been disobeyed had already been set aside by a Division Bench, and imposed ₹50,000 costs on the petitioners payable directly to the respondent official.

The High Court of Punjab & Haryana at Chandigarh dismissed a contempt petition on 4 May 2026 after finding that the order the petitioners claimed had been disobeyed — passed on 16 February 2024 in CWP-19113-1997 — had already been set aside by a Division Bench of the same court on 28 May 2025 in LPA No. 2075-2024. Justice Sudeepti Sharma, sitting singly, held that the petitioners had filed and continued to pursue the contempt proceedings despite full knowledge of this legal position. The court treated the conduct as a gross abuse of judicial process and imposed costs of ₹50,000 on the petitioners, to be paid directly to the respondent, Jitender Kumar IAS, Director Secondary Education, Haryana, Panchkula.

The Contempt Petition and Its Procedural History

The petitioners, Virender Singh and others, filed COCP-3750-2025 alleging deliberate and intentional disobedience of an order dated 16 February 2024 passed by the court in CWP-19113-1997, Rajbir Singh Kuhar and others v. State of Haryana and others. The named respondent was Jitender Kumar IAS.

In response, counsel for the respondent placed on record an affidavit of Jitender Kumar dated 16 October 2025 along with a copy of the Division Bench order dated 28 May 2025 in LPA No. 2075-2024. That order had allowed the State of Haryana's Letters Patent Appeal and set aside the very order of 16 February 2024 whose alleged non-compliance formed the basis of the contempt petition.

The petitioners themselves had placed the LPA order on record as Annexure P-2. The court noted that despite this, they chose to file and press the contempt petition. Mr. Saurabh Dalal and Mr. Gurasis appeared for the petitioners; Mr. Harish Nain, AAG Haryana, appeared for the respondent.

Why the Court Found No Contempt

Justice Sharma observed that a perusal of the case file showed no disobedience by the respondent. The court recorded that the respondent was, in fact, performing his duties effectively and efficiently.

The court restated the settled position that contempt jurisdiction must be exercised with great caution and circumspection, and only where wilful and intentional disobedience of a court order is clearly made out. It held that the jurisdiction cannot be invoked to settle scores or to harass officials, particularly when the record reflects compliance.

Once the order of 16 February 2024 was set aside by the Division Bench on 28 May 2025, there was no subsisting direction capable of being disobeyed. The petitioners' decision to continue the contempt proceedings in the face of this fact was, in the court's view, without any justifiable or tenable ground in law.

Reliance on Earlier Coordinate Bench and Supreme Court Precedents

Justice Sharma drew on a coordinate bench decision in COCP-3579-2025, Payal Chaudhary v. KAP Sinha IAS and others, decided on 24 July 2025, which had itself relied on three Supreme Court judgments: Dalip Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh and others (2010) 2 SCC 114; Subrata Roy Sahara v. Union of India (2014) 8 SCC 470; and K.C. Tharakan v. State Bank of India & Ors. decided on 1 May 2023 in Writ Petition (Civil) Diary No. 27458/2022.

From Payal Chaudhary, the court reproduced the observation that filing repetitive and meritless petitions and adopting dilatory tactics “undermines the very foundation of our legal system and clogs the administration of justice.”

The court quoted the Supreme Court's warning in Dalip Singh that a new category of litigants had emerged who “shamelessly resort to falsehood and unethical means for achieving their goals,” and that such litigants who seek to pollute the stream of justice with tainted hands are not entitled to any relief, interim or final.

From Subrata Roy Sahara, the court noted the Supreme Court's observation that the Indian judicial system is “grossly afflicted with frivolous litigation” and that on the other side of every irresponsible claim there is an innocent sufferer who endures anxiety without any fault.

In K.C. Tharakan, the Supreme Court had held that no legal system can permit a party to repeatedly agitate the same issue after it has been conclusively adjudicated, and had imposed costs of ₹10,000 even on a dismissed employee.

The Court's Reasoning on Costs Against Petitioners

Justice Sharma noted that courts ordinarily impose costs deductible from the salary of official respondents when there is apparent non-compliance. The present case, she held, was the reverse: the official had complied, and it was the petitioners who were targeting him without basis.

The court reasoned that if costs can be imposed on officials and recovered from their salaries in cases of genuine disobedience, there is no reason why petitioners who manifestly abuse the process should not be saddled with exemplary costs payable to the affected official. The court described the petition as a “glaring instance of misuse of the judicial process” and held that the time had come to impose deterrent costs on frivolous litigants, not merely on non-compliant officials.

Order

Justice Sudeepti Sharma dismissed COCP-3750-2025 with costs of ₹50,000 (Rupees Fifty Thousand), to be disbursed to the respondent Jitender Kumar IAS. The respondent was directed to provide his bank account details to the petitioners for the transfer.

The court further directed that in the event of default in payment, the amount shall be recovered from the petitioners as arrears of land revenue by the competent authority. Pending miscellaneous applications, if any, were also disposed of.