Interim protection to perform religious rituals does not confer a right to appropriate devotees’ offerings.

The complainant, a Mutawalli, sought contempt proceedings alleging disobedience of interim orders dated 17 December 2024 and 17 February 2025 in W.P. No. 106626/2024.

The first order continued an injunction restraining interference with the complainant’s day-to-day religious activities at the Darga and Masjid, including pooja; the later order declined to duplicate that protection and continued the interim order.

The complainant alleged that, after the annual festivities, the accused District Waqf Officer took the ₹1,21,157 collected in the Darga hundi and retained it.

The accused submitted that the orders protected the performance of pooja, not the complainant’s right to appropriate offerings, and that the funds were being accounted for.

1. Whether the accused wilfully disobeyed the interim orders by obstructing the complainant’s performance of pooja and other religious activities at the Darga/Masjid

2. Whether the accused’s taking and accounting for the hundi collections amounted to contempt of the interim orders

The petition was brought under Sections 11 and 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, which provide for the High Court’s contempt jurisdiction and the punishment for contempt.

The Court assessed the allegation against the terms of the interim orders themselves: those orders protected the complainant from being disturbed while conducting pooja and related activities, but did not address entitlement to, or control of, offerings collected from devotees.

No precedent was cited.

Although the petition alleged interference with the complainant’s religious activities, the Court considered the complainant’s substantive grievance to be the accused’s retention of the hundi collections.

The interim orders did not grant the complainant a right to appropriate those funds or prohibit the authorities from taking custody of and accounting for them. Accordingly, the alleged handling of the money did not establish disobedience of the orders, whose protection concerned the conduct of religious activities.

dismissed the contempt petition