Contempt in general parlance means disgrace or disregard for something.

The legal analogy

of the term translates to disrespect towards a court of law and its officers.
According to Black’s Law Dictionary, contempt is the act of demeaning the court, preventing
justice administration, or disobeying a sentence of the court. It is criminal and can lead to
fines or imprisonment.1

The offence of contempt is partly criminal and partly civil in nature which is perceptible from
the definition of Contempt under section 2(a) of the Contempt of Courts Act,
1971(hereinafter referred to as the act) as civil contempt or criminal contempt. The act thus
divides the expression ‘contempt’ into two parts:
1. Civil contempt
2. Criminal contempt
Definition-
Civil contempt is defined by section 2(b) of the act as “wilful disobedience to any judgment,
decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court or wilful breach of an undertaking
given to a court”
For example; in a case of maintenance, the court orders the husband to give the wife 1/3 rd of
his earnings every month. The husband does not abide by the order and is thus liable for civil
contempt.
Criminal contempt is defined by section 2(c) of the act as “the publication (whether by words,
spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise) of any matter or
the doing of any other act whatsoever which—
(i) scandalizes or tends to scandalize, or lowers or tends to lower the authority
of, any court; or
(ii) prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course of any
judicial proceeding; or
(iii) interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the
administration of justice in any other manner”

For example; LawVastutah on its twitter account posts the following tweet-

“Indian courts are useless! Haven’t been able to do justice to SSR till now. Dear Modiji,
please help our SSR get justice.”

The above post scandalizes the entire judicial system and lowers the authority of the
courts in India implying that a third party will be able to do justice better than the courts.
Therefore, LawVastutah will be guilty of criminal contempt.

Another example; An employee of LawVastutah files a case against the founder for
sexual harassment. The founder threatens the employee to withdraw the suit or she will
lose her job. This amounts to a hinderance in the administration of justice by the court.
Hence, the founder is guilty of criminal contempt.

A Canadian case explains in detail the difference between civil and criminal contempt,

1
https://thelawdictionary.org/contempt-of-court/
Everywoman's Health Centre Society (1988) v. Bridges2,

“A civil contempt is one where the dispute is entirely between private parties which does
not threaten the proper administration of justice. A criminal contempt is one where,
because of the nature of the conduct in question, the issues transcend the interests of the
parties, and the public has an interest in ensuring the proper administration of justice”.

Civil contempt is thus basically a legal leeway under the garb of contempt for a party to
enforce its rights which are entitled to him/her through a court order. Civil contempt
may be brought by the injured party and he/she can choose to let it go.

Criminal contempt is where the authority of the court has been defied by a party leading
to an interference or an obstruction in justice. The injured party here is the court and
justice.

An illustration to explain the difference between civil and criminal contempt, the court
orders the father (Ross) of a child (Ben) to hand over the custody of the child to his
mother, Susan. Ross does not abide by order as his second wife (Rachel) instigates him
that if he does so then Susan would never let him see Ben. Here, Ross would be liable
for civil contempt as he disobeyed the order of the court whereas Rachel would be guilty
of criminal contempt as she interfered in the course of justice.

Purpose-

The major factor of distinction between civil and criminal contempt is the purpose or the
object of using the power of the court to institute a contempt proceeding. The purpose of
civil contempt is to force the contemnor to obey a court order for the benefit of the
complainant whereas the purpose of criminal contempt is to punish a person for
undermining the authority of court or interfering in the natural course of justice.3

Therefore, civil contempt proceedings are a form of execution wherein a sanction is

imposed to assure the compliance of an order by the contemnor or compensate for any
damages which are sustained by the complained due to the non-compliance of the
contemnor.

Whereas, criminal contempt proceedings are initiated to preserve and vindicate the
court’s authority and punish for disobedience of its orders.

To summarise, the purpose of civil contempt is compliance whereas that of criminal

contempt is punishment.

Sanction-
Civil contempt is an attempt at affecting the future actions of a party whereas criminal
contempt punished the past actions of a person. In civil contempt, the order given by the
court is to compensate the injured party for the losses whereas in criminal contempt the order
given by the court is to reinstate the authority of the court. Thus, the nature of sanction in

2
(1990) 54 BCLR 273.
3
Pratap Singh v. Ajit Prasad, AIR 1966 All. 305.
civil contempt proceedings is remedial while in criminal contempt proceedings, it is
punitive.
Mixed Contempt-

There have been various Indian cases4 which describe a mixed type of contempt which
constitutes of non-compliance of order of the court, defiance of the court to disobedience of
the order and such conduct which amounts to interference with the course of justice. Such
contempt neither purely civil nor purely criminal is called sui generis.

4
Dulal Chandra Bher v Sukumar Banerjee, AIR 1958 Cal 474 : 1958 Cr LJ 1162 : 62 Cal WN 595. Also see
Pratap Singh v. Ajit Prasad, AIR 1966 All. 305.