Madras HC Sets Aside One-Month Civil-Prison Detention Of Medical Society Members: No EGM Was Held On Injunction-Covered 2019 Date

The plaintiff in C.S. No. 523 of 2019 challenged a notice calling for an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on 8 September 2019.

On 6 September 2019, the High Court restrained the third defendant, Cherian Abraham, from convening that EGM; the injunction was affirmed in appeal.

No EGM was held on that date.

In April 2021, an EGM was convened and held by members, including the appellants, and its resolutions became the subject of separate proceedings in C.S. No. 159 of 2021.

The plaintiff sought action under Order XXXIX Rule 2A CPC for alleged disobedience of the 2019 injunction.

The Single Judge ordered the appellants’ detention in civil prison for one month; they appealed.

Order XXXIX Rule 2A CPC provides for consequences where a party to an injunction or order of temporary injunction disobeys or breaches it.

Punishment requires established wilful disobedience; it cannot be inferred merely from subsequent events where the conduct restrained by the order did not occur.

An injunction binds the parties to the proceedings, and a person who was not a party cannot, on that basis alone, be treated as having breached it.

No judicial precedents are identified as forming the basis of the court’s reasoning.

The injunction specifically restrained Cherian Abraham from convening the EGM scheduled for 8 September 2019, but there was no evidence that an EGM took place on that date.

The later meeting of 23 April 2021 was held in different circumstances and its validity and legal effect were being contested in separate proceedings; it did not establish breach of the date-specific 2019 injunction.

The original suit challenging the 2019 notice had also been dismissed.

Further, Anu Varghese was not a party to that suit.

In these circumstances, the court found no basis to conclude that either appellant had wilfully disobeyed the injunction.

It set aside the Single Judge’s order directing their detention in civil prison and allowed both appeals, with no order as to costs.