AIR 1990 SUPREME COURT 464 ::(1990) 1 MahLR 910 ::(1990) 2 CivLJ 495 ::1990 (1) SCC 259 ::1990 (11) RecCriR 155 ::1990 (1) CurCC 146 ::1990 (1) AllCriLR 358 ::1990 All CJ 185 ::1990 (2) Bom CR 235 ::1990 HRR 59 ::(1990) 1 LJR 475 ::1990 (1) RenCR 82 ::1990 (1) RentLR 456 ::(1990) 1 SCJ 650

Supreme Court Of India

Hon'ble Judge(s): Sabyasachi Mukharji, V. Ramaswami , JJ

Contempt of Courts Act (70 of 1971) , S.12— Offence under - Delivery of vacant possession of premises by tenant - Undertaking as to, given by him to Supreme Court - Breach of - Tenant, guilty of committing contempt of Court and therefore liable to be convicted. When a Court accepts an undertaking given by one of the parties and passes orders based on such undertaking, the order amounts in substance to an injunction restraining that party from acting in breach thereof. The breach of an undertaking given to the Court by or on behalf of a party to a civil proceedings is, therefore, regarded as tantamount to a breach of injunction although the remedies @page-SC465 were not always identical. For the purpose of enforcing an undertaking, that undertaking is treated as an order so that an undertaking, if broken, would involve the same consequences on the persons breaking that undertaking as would their disobedience to an order for an injunction. It is settled law that breach of an injunction or breach of an undertaking given to a Court by a person in a civil proceeding on the faith of which the Court sanctions a particular course of action is misconduct amounting to contempt. The remedy in such circumstances may be in the form of a direction to the contemnor to purge the contempt or a sentence of imprisonment or fine or all of them. On ....