Is Contempt Petition Maintainable Citing Disobedience Of Writ Court’s Order Which Modifies A Labour Court’s Award?

NIRMALKUMAR MOHANDOSS

India is a common law country and under Article 215 of the Constitution, a High Court is a Court of record and have the powers to punish contempt of itself. According to Section 2(b) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, ‘“civil contempt” means wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court.’ Moreover, Section 12 of the Act provides for the ‘punishment of contempt of Court’. Therefore, the natural corollary is that when a judgment of the High Court rendered in exercise of its writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is wilfully disobeyed, it amounts to contempt of court punishable under the Act.  However, can the contempt jurisdiction of a High Court be invoked alleging wilful disobedience of its order under Article 226 which modifies a labour court’s award under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947?

It is pertinent to note that an award of the labour Court under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 is not appealable and hence persons aggrieved by such award resort to the writ jurisdiction of the High Court. Though a writ court unlike an appellate court does not appreciate and reappreciate facts and law, in exercise of its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226, a High Court interferes when the award under challenge is perverse in law. In such circumstances, what is the legal ramification of a writ court’s order which modifies a labour Court’s award? Can contempt jurisdiction of the writ court be invoked to implement the order?

The Hon’ble Madras High Court recently had the occasion to answer this question in the Puducherry Power Corporation Employees Social Welfare Union Vs The Management [Contempt Petition No. 651/2025, order dated 14.11.2025]. The factual matrix of the matter is as follows:

The Trade Union representing the employees of the Puducherry Power Corporation Limited raised an industrial dispute seeking wage revision to commensurate pay commission recommendation on par with employees of the Government of Puducherry. The Industrial dispute was adjudicated in favour of the employees but the labour court awarded the relief from date on which the industrial dispute was raised. This was challenged before the Madras High Court by the trade union on the ground that the relief ought to have been granted to the employees from the date of their appointment or from the date on which the pay commission recommendation was implemented. Upon hearing the rival submissions, the writ court allowed the writ petition modifying the relief granted by the labour court to the extent that the employees were entitled to the revised pay scale from the date of their appointment or from the date on which the pay commission recommendation was implemented by the Government, as the case may be. Alleging wilful disobedience of this order, the trade union invoked the contempt jurisdiction of the High Court.  

After a careful consideration of the legal position, the Court dismissed the contempt petition by placing reliance on the earlier judgments of the Court in the case of Workmen of Best and Crompton Engineering, Ltd., (by General Secretary of Socialist Workers' Union) Versus Best and Crompton Engineering, Ltd., Ambattur, and others reported in 1987 (2) LLN 590, and in the case of R. Gopala Krishnan Versus Management of Binny, Ltd., Chennai, reported in 2002 (1) LLJ 336. In R. Gopala Krishnan, the division bench of the Madras High Court had held that:

“To enforce the award, definite procedures have been provided in the Industrial Disputes Act and it is for the applicant to approach the appropriate forum. The contempt application is not a substitute for execution or implementation of the award passed by the Labour Court as modified by this Court. This is not a fit case where the contempt proceedings could be initiated against the respondent.”

It is relevant to note that according to Section 11(9) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, ‘every award made, order issued or settlement arrived at by or before Labour Court or Tribunal … shall be executed in accordance with the procedure laid down for execution of orders and decree of a civil court under order 21 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908’. Since an award of the labour court is executable in the manner laid down in the Code of Civil Procedure, the natural corollary is that such award modified by the writ court becomes executable in its modified form. Therefore, contempt jurisdiction of the High Court cannot be extended in such circumstances even when the writ court's order is allegedly wilfully disobeyed. According to the Court this is because the contempt jurisdiction is not a substitute to the statutory procedure laid down to execute the award.

The author is an advocate at the Madras High Court.