Jaipur | August 21, 2025 — A Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court at Jaipur has dismissed a large batch of civil contempt petitions arising out of the 2015 Bhagwan Das Todi College litigation, holding that the petitioners cannot use contempt jurisdiction to secure fresh, individual service-benefit adjudications and that no wilful disobedience by the State has been shown. The Bench of Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and Justice Sanjeet Purohit reserved judgment on August 12 and pronounced it on August 21, 2025.
The petitions—filed over several years (2017–2025)—sought enforcement of directions issued in D.B. Special Appeal (Writ) No. 663/2015 and connected matters decided on November 6, 2015, where the Court had directed non-government aided institutions to prepare due-drawn statements and the State to verify and release arrears, with the order made applicable mutatis mutandis to similarly situated employees.
In tracing the litigation’s history, the Bench noted that a coordinate Bench on November 30, 2017 treated earlier contempt petitions as representations to the Education Secretaries and laid down a hearing and payment schedule. It also recorded that, on December 1, 2021, another batch of 268 contempt matters was disposed of with department-wise compliance directions, in the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s September 9, 2021 order in State of Rajasthan v. Manju Saxena, which had required payment of the admitted amount within eight weeks.
Turning to the present petitions, the Court emphasized the “limited” reach of contempt powers and held that issues such as whether particular teachers are entitled to specific pay-scale benefits demand independent adjudication and cannot be decided within contempt. Relying on J.S. Parihar v. Ganpat Duggar (1996) 6 SCC 291 and the Supreme Court’s reiteration in Snehasis Giri v. Subhasis Mitra (2023) 18 SCC 529, the Bench said that where authorities have passed orders post-judgment, any grievance gives rise to a “fresh cause of action” to be pursued before the appropriate forum, not by alleging contempt.
The judges also noted that in most cases compliance—or at least partial compliance—has already been effected; to the extent any individual benefits remain unresolved owing to case-specific facts, those must be pursued before the Rajasthan Non-Government Educational Institutions Tribunal, whose directions are executable under Section 27 of the 1989 Act. On these premises, the Court found “no deliberate or wilful non-compliance” and dismissed the contempt petitions without costs.
Key background, as recorded by the Bench: The 2015 Division Bench order directed aided institutions to compile dues for staff who worked against sanctioned and aided posts and required the State to verify and pay, extending the benefit to similarly placed employees; subsequent 2017 and 2021 orders managed compliance logistics but did not convert contempt into a forum for deciding new, individualized service claims.
Outcome: All pending contempt petitions stand dismissed; liberty, if any, lies in pursuing individual claims before the statutory Tribunal rather than through contempt.
