Contempt cannot lie absent a specific direction to appoint the applicant.

The petitioner challenged the Central Administrative Tribunal’s judgment dated 29 October 2025 in contempt proceedings arising from its order in OA 492/2015.

That order directed the UPSC to forward the petitioner’s case for allocation to a service or post against a disability-category vacancy, based on his ESE-2012 rank and service preferences

The contempt petition named the Railway Board Chairman and the UPSC Secretary as alleged contemnors

In a separate writ petition, the High Court recorded that the UPSC had forwarded the petitioner’s case to the concerned Ministries, which would decide allocation; it left the contempt proceedings concerning those Ministries to the Tribunal

The Tribunal subsequently rejected the contempt petition, and the petitioner brought the present writ petition challenging that judgment

1. Whether contempt proceedings could be maintained against the Railway Board when the Tribunal’s operative direction was addressed to the UPSC

2. Whether the Ministries’ failure to appoint or accommodate the petitioner constituted wilful or contumacious disobedience of the Tribunal’s order or the High Court’s subsequent order

3. Whether the Tribunal could, in contempt proceedings, assess the legitimacy of the Ministry of Railways’ decision not to appoint the petitioner

Contempt requires disobedience of a clear and operative judicial direction; where no direction to appoint or grant relief has been issued, failure to do so cannot, without more, constitute wilful or contumacious disobedience

Contempt proceedings are not the forum to determine the merits or legitimacy of an administrative decision that falls outside the directions alleged to have been breached

The judgment cites no statute or precedent as the basis for these principles.

The Tribunal’s direction required the UPSC to forward the petitioner’s case; it did not direct the Ministries to appoint him

The High Court had recorded that the UPSC forwarded the case and that the decision thereafter lay with the concerned Ministries, but it issued no appointment direction

Accordingly, the Railway Board could not properly be proceeded against for breach of a direction addressed to the UPSC, and the Ministry’s stated inability to accommodate the petitioner for want of a vacancy could not be tested for legitimacy in contempt proceedings

With no further direction to the Ministries, the alleged non-appointment did not establish contempt

It clarified that any Tribunal observations on the merits of the Ministry’s decision not to appoint the petitioner would not bind future proceedings.

The petitioner remained at liberty to pursue an appropriate non-contempt remedy, which would be decided uninfluenced by the impugned contempt judgment; the Tribunal was requested to deal expeditiously with any substantive grievance, having regard to the petitioner’s disability