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M.C. Mehta v. Union of India (In Re: Sealing Issue)

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2018 INSC 1094Decided 22 Nov 2018
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 4677 of 1985
Justice Madan B. Lokur · Justice S. Abdul Nazeer · Justice Deepak Gupta

Background

This order arises within the decades-old M.C. Mehta environmental PIL, under the supervision of a Court-appointed Monitoring Committee. The Committee reported that an illegal dairy at Gokalpur village, Delhi, sealed by the East Delhi Municipal Corporation's Veterinary Services Department on 14 September 2018, had its seal broken/tampered with on 16 September 2018, reportedly by a sitting Member of Parliament, Shri Manoj Tiwari. The Court initially suspected this interfered with its own Monitoring Committee's work and issued contempt notice to Shri Tiwari, who appeared on multiple dates and filed a reply before the matter was finally heard on 30 October 2018.

Decision Breakdown

On hearing submissions, the Court found that the sealing had in fact been an independent action by the EDMC's Veterinary Services Department under municipal law, with no involvement of or direction from the Monitoring Committee at all, meaning the alleged interference was not actually with any order of this Court or its Committee. The Court nonetheless recorded that Shri Tiwari had admittedly broken/tampered with the seal and strongly deprecated his conduct and his since-reported public allegations that the Monitoring Committee was "running a sealing racket," calling the behaviour irresponsible for an elected representative yielding to mob pressure instead of upholding the rule of law. Because the underlying premise of contempt (interference with the Court's own Committee) did not hold up, and because the Court held its "shoulders broad enough" to absorb criticism, it declined to proceed further against Shri Tiwari, leaving any action to his political party's discretion, and closed the contempt proceedings along with Monitoring Committee Reports Nos. 129 and 131.

Lesson Learnt

Taking the law into one's own hands, even under public or mob pressure, and even by an elected official, draws judicial censure, but contempt of court requires actual interference with a court's own order or process; here, since the sealing itself was a routine municipal act unconnected to the Court's Monitoring Committee, the Court closed the matter with criticism rather than punishment.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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