CLCON No. 35 of 2015 Honble Alok Singh, J. Mr. M.C. Pandey, Senior Advocate assisted by Mr. Devesh Upreti, Advocate for the contempt applicant. Present contempt application has been filed with the allegation that respondent No.1. has transferred the property in suit during the pendency of First Appeal No. 85 of 2012 before this Court, therefore, sale deed is hit by principle of lis pendence. Consequently, opposite parties be punished for violating the principle of lis pendence, under the Contempt of Courts Act. It is true that as per the principle of lis pendence parties to the suit, ordinarily, shall not transfer the property in question without seeking approval of the competent Court hearing the suit or appeal as the case may be. However, there seems to be no absolute bar in view of the fact that transferee during the pendency of the suit shall stand in the shoe of the vendor and vendee may apply to continue with the suit or defence as the case may be under order 22 Rule 10 C.P.C.. Section 2 (b) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 defines civil contempt which reads as under :-
2. . (b) civil contempt means willful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court or willful breach of an undertaking given to the court; As per Section 2 (b) of the Act, willful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court or willful breach of an undertaking given to the Court would amount to civil contempt. Undisputedly, there is no direction or stay order of the Court hearing the First Appeal not to transfer the property without seeking approval of the Court, therefore, transfer of the property during the pendency of the appeal, in violation of principle of lis pendence, will not amount to civil contempt as defined under Section 2 (b) of the Act. Consequently, contempt application is dismissed in limine. (Alok Singh, J.) Dated 09.03.2015 Shiv