 bill no xii of 2018 the contempt of courts (amendment) bill, 2018 a billfurther to amend the contempt of courts act, 1971be it enacted by parliament in the sixty-ninth year of the republic of  india as follows:—1 (1) this act may be called the contempt of courts (amendment) act, 2018short title and commencement(2) it shall come into force on such date as the central government may, by notification in the official gazette, appoint52 in the contempt of courts act, 1971, in section 2, for clause (f) the following shall be substituted namely:—amendment of section 2 of act 70 of 1971(b) ''civil contempt''  means wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court including non-filing of counter or reply affidavits or proceedings within the time granted by the court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court;explanation i—for the purpose of this clause, the non-filing of counter or reply affidavits or proceedings by the official respondents within the time granted by the any court of law, shall amount to a civil contempt5explanation ii—the term "official respondents" in the above explanation i shall include all the officials representing the union or state governments or any authority or body or institution of self government established or constituted by or under the constitution; or by any other law made by the parliament or a state legislature; or by notification issued or order made by the central government or a state government; bodies owned, controlled or substantially financed by the central government or a state government and non-government organisations substantially financed by the central government or a state government, who were arrayed as respondents in the legal proceedings before any court of law10explanation iii—if the "official respondent" is having a legal officer or a government pleader or a standing counsel or an advocate on record or any law officer to represent it before the appropriate court of law, the responsibility of filing the counter affidavit or reply proceedings shall lie equally between the official respondent and legal officer representing it and they shall jointly and severally face the contempt proceedings, if any, initiated against any of them for this purpose"15 statement  of  objects  and  reasonsthe contempt of courts act, 1971 was enacted to uphold the dignity and autority of the courts, ensure compliance with the directions of court, preserve an effective and impartial system of justice and to maintain public confidence in the administration of justice the act defines two types of contempt one is civil contempt and other is criminal contempt the civil contempt is defined as wilful disobedience to any judgement, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court2 there are large numbers of pending cases before various courts where the government is a litigant and reports indicate that large number of cases are pending because of non-filing of counter or reply affidavits by the various government authorities in spite of specific directions from the concerned courts the non-filing of counter/reply affidavits is causing a lot of inconvenience to the courts in the administration of justice this is also creating delay in doing justice to the people approaching the courts often, courts are taking  a serious view of delay in filing counter/reply affidavits and impose heavy costs to be recovered from the offices concerend3 the government is sensiting its officers from time to time to file counter affidavits reply within the time granted by the courts the government also appoints law officers/ government pleaders/ standing counsels/advocate on record/solicitors to represent various government departments in various courts however, the law officers are not taking the responsibility of filing counters and they simply inform the respondent officials about the case and keep silent until a reply comes from them similarly, officials are also not choosing to file the counters until and unless court takes a serious view lack of proper coordination between government officials and law officers is one of the reasons for not filing the counter affidavits within time therefore, the responsibility of filing counter should be the equal responsibility of the official respondent and law officer representing him in the court and they should be jointly and severally responsible for non-filing within the time granted by courts4 though, non-filing of counter affidavits within the time granted by court can be interpreted as disobedience of the order of the court, contempt proceedings are not initiated in this aspect till now therefore, it is necessary to explicitly bring the non-filing of counter affidavits within time granted by courts as a contempt of court and as such an amendment is proposed to the parent act to this effect the proposed amendment ensures in-time filing of counter affidavit and thus helps the court to deliver judgments at the earliest so that the justice is not delayed the proposed bill addresses the above concerns to a certain extenthence this billdr  kvp  ramachandra  rao annexure extracts from the contempt of courts act, 1971 (70 of 1971)        definitions2 in this act, unless the context otherwise requires,—(a)     (b) 'civil contempt' means wilful disobedience to any judgement, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court;         rajya  sabha———— a billfurther to amend the contempt of courts act, 1971————(dr  kvp ramachandra rao,  mp)mgipmrnd—903rs(s3)—23-07-2018