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2021 (8) TMI 867 - AT - Insolvency and BankruptcyContempt Jurisdiction - ‘Aggrieved’ person - Respondent is financially solvent or not - main grievance of the Appellant is that the Adjudicating Authority while passing the impugned order had failed to exercise his powers, in terms of section 425 of the Companies Act, 2013 thereby punishing the Respondent for Contempt - HELD THAT:- There is no two opinion of a pivotal fact that the contempt of court’ is of course a ‘Special Jurisdiction’ to be exercised with great care, caution, and utmost circumspection, when an adverse act affects the administration of justice’ or which tends to shake public confidence in the judicial institutions or to impede its course - It will be a travesty of justice if the ‘Tribunal’/ ‘Court of Law’ were to permit gross contempt of Tribunal/Court of Law to go unpunished, if there be no mitigating factors/circumstances, in the considered opinion of this Tribunal a wilful breach of an undertaking given to a Tribunal/Court may amount to Contemptuous Act, coming within the meaning of Section 2(b) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. It is for the Tribunal to find out whether its order has been disobeyed in a ‘wilful’ manner and the mental element is to be adjudged by the ‘Tribunal’ indicating the state of mind of the ‘contemnor’ - It may not be out of place for this ‘Tribunal’ to make a pertinent mention that Section 425 of the Companies Act, 2013 provides for ‘power to punish for contempt’ and the same enjoins that the ‘Tribunal’ and the ‘Appellant Tribunal’ shall have the same jurisdiction, powers and authority in respect of contempt of themselves as the High Court has and may exercise for his purpose the powers under the provisions of the Contempt of Court Act, 1971. When the ‘Tribunal’ has the requisite power under the Section 425 of the Companies Act, 2013 to punish a person/contemnor, then, the Tribunal is to exercise its power and to adjudicate the Contempt Petition on its file, of course, on merits - Application allowed.
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