The constitution of India in Article 129& Article 215 gives the power to Supreme Court and High Courts respectively to punish individuals with respect to contempt of itself.
To regulate the procedure in this regard The contempt of Courts Act 1971 was in acted. The act contain 24 sections of which section 2,3,4,5,10,12,20 and 21 are important. Section 2 defines the Nature of Contempt of court which is either be a civil contempt or criminal contempt.
Civil contempt - means will Full disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction order writ or other process of court or willful breach of an undertaking given to a court.
Criminal contempt - means publication of any matter or the doing of any act which scandalise or tends to scandalise or lower or tends to lower the authority of any court or something which is prejudicial or interfere or tend to interfere with the due course of any judicial proceedings or something which interferes or tend to interfere with or obstructs or tend to obstructs any other manner.
However, the act itself define certain things which when done are not amount to contempt of court.
Accordingly section 3 says that innocent publication and distribution of matter is not contempt of court if at that time the individual had no reasonable grounds for believing that the proceedings were pending in the court. Also the publication of the matter in connection with any civil or criminal proceeding which is not pending at the time of publication shall not be deemed as contempt of court.
Furthermore as per section 4 a person shall not be guilty of contempt of court for publishing a fair and accurate report of an ongoing judicial proceeding. Likewise a fair criticism on the merit of a decided case will not be deemed as contempt of court as per section 5.
However, as per the supreme Court Aswani kumar Ghosh Vs Arvind Bose criticism of court when going beyond the limits of fair and bonafide criticism will amount to contempt of court.
Section 10 empower the HC to punish for the contempt of subordinate Courts under its jurisdiction. However, if the alleged contempt is also an offence under the relevance section of IPC then in that case the high court shall not take cognisance of the contempt.
An example in this regard would be section 175 of IPC.
Section 12 informs about the punishment of the contempt of court. Accordingly a contempt of court may be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend for 6 months or with a fine which may extend to 2000 rupees or with both. However the accused may be discharged or the punishment awarded may be remitted on apology being made to the satisfaction of court.
Principle of limitation is also applicable on such matters and accordingly section 20 places a limitation for actions for contempt. In other words a court can not initiate contempt proceedings either suo moto nor on someone's complain. After the expiry of a period of 1 year from the date the contempt is alleged to have been committed.
Lastly as per section 21 the provisions of the contempt of court will not apply in relation to contempt of Nyay Panchayats or other village courts.
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