Can a contempt petition be refiled
I had filed a civil contempt petition against RBI.
The matter pertained to certain unilateral post judgement alterations made by RBI in it's circular dt [deleted] to its regulated entities pursuant to the directions issued by the Hon'ble SC on WPC 476/2020.
In WPC 476/2020, the Honble SC directed that no interest on interest shall be charged from eligible borrowers who defaulted during the moratorium "for the period during the moratorium". However, RBI who was a party to the case altered the judgement directions and issued a circular dt [deleted] mentioning that the honble SC had issued directions that no interest on interest will be charged from borrowers during the moratorium period. On this basis Regulated entities reversed the capitalization during the moratorium but continued to charge for the moratorium from 1st September 2020 onwards although the Honble SC had barred the charge of Interest on interest both for & during the moratorium.
My contempt petition 34743/2024 against RBI was heard on 4.4.25 where the learned judges asked me if i was a party to the original WPC 476/2020.
When i replied no, they asked me how i was filing the contempt petition. I quoted the judgement in a contempt petition filed in RBI vs Jayanti lal mistry case where it washeld that in terms of general directions, any aggreived person can file a contempt petition and the jurisdiction is not limited to only the parties to the case. The learned judges did not pursue this legal precedent further nor ask me to show the case judgement. They simply went on to ask me if I would like to withdraw my case or if they should put exemplary cost and dismiss it. Given the situation, I was forced to withdraw my case. Now, the order says it is dismissed as withdrawn with liberty to avail applicable remedy under law. They have not specifically mentioned that I have liberty to refile the contempt case.
In this scenario, can I
1. Refile my contempt case quoting additional submissions & grounds for refiling explaining why I am eligible to file a contempt petition in view of Girish Mittal Vs Parvati sundaram case page 11&12.
2. If not can I refile the contempt petition with a co petitioner who was a original party to the case.
3. What are the procedural formalities to do it, Do i need to file a SLP seeking permission to refile?
4. Is there a possibility that the court having dismissed the contempt petition as withdrawn will not entertain the contempt petition again now even though the petitioner is now showing evidence of legal precedents which answer the courts concern regarding locus standing of the petitioner affecting maintainability?
Asked 19 days ago in Civil Law
My contempt petition was based on the change in phraseology between the SC directions issued on 23.3.21 in WPC 476/2020 and subsequent RBI circular issued on 7.4.21. I had argued the the use of the phrase "for the period during the moratorium " in the judgement implied that the bar on charging penal interest applied both for & during the moratorium, where justification was provided for such bar in the judgement itself that enabled defaults during covid moratorium cannot have penal consequences as a matter of legal principle. The post judgement modification by RBI in it's circular mentioning that the directions were applicable "during the moratorium period" resulted in restricting the temporal scope of the relief and limiting it to only the moratorium period while allowing the regulated entities to restart the capitalization of interest and charging of interest from 1.9.20.
This meant that RBI unlawfully changed the nomenclature of enabled defaults to wilful defaults after the moratorium ended and illegally charged interest on interest from 19.92 crore borrowers and it's regulated entities have unlawfully gained over 50000 crores over the past 5 years and will continue to gain over the next 10-15 years also especially in longer tenure loans. It is also to be mentioned that the honble SC had directed refunds of such collected penal interest or to be adjusted in subsequent month EMIs. With respect to the post moratorium period, that constituted "for" the moratorium phrase of the judgements, both refunds were also not given and no adjustments to subsequent month EMIs were made.
My question is
1. Does this constitute "continuous contempt" and hence exemption from limitation act?
2. Do past legal precedents and past Supreme court judgements have legal binding value on future benches and a duty to hear thise precedents?
3. Can the court offer the petitioner 2 options such as exemplary cost or withdraw just 2 minutes into the hearing?
2.
Asked 19 days ago
I forgot to mention one more thing.
I did follow up with RBI ombudsman in this and they have given me a reply saying that such collection of penal interest following capitalization of unpaid interest is "as per RBI guidelines". They specifically avoided any reply to the query that since SC directions were in contravention to these guidelines, how was such a charge justified?
I had enclosed this also as an annexure in the petition .
Asked 19 days ago