Power to punish for contempt of Supreme Court was explicitly introduced-Constituent Assembly Debates
CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY DEBATES (PROCEEDINGS)-
VOLUME VIII
CONSTITUENT
ASSEMBLY OF INDIA
Friday, the 27th May 1949
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
"Sir, the new article 108 is necessary because we have not made
any provision in the Draft Constitution to define the status of the Supreme
Court. If the House will turn to article, 192, they will find exactly a similar
article with regard to the High Courts in India. It seems therefore necessary
that a similar provision should be made in the Constitution in order to define
the position of the Supreme Court. I do not wish to take much time of the House
in saying what the words 'a court of record' mean. I may briefly say that a
court of record is a court the records of which are admitted to be of evidentiary
value and they are not to be questioned when they are produced before any court.
That is the meaning of the words 'court of record'. Then, the second part of article
108 says that the court shall have the power to punish for contempt of itself.
As a matter of fact, once you make a court a court of record by statute, the
power to punish for contempt necessarily follows from that position. But, it
was felt that in view of the fact that in England this power is largely derived
from Common Law and as we have no such thing as Common Law in this Country, we
felt it better to state the whole position in the statute itself. That is why
article 108 has been introduced."
The
question is:
"That
for article 108, the following article be substituted:
'108.
The Supreme Court shall be a court of record and shall have all the powers of
such a court including the power to punish for contempt of itself.'"
The amendment was adopted.
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