Contempt of Court: SC Grants Interim Relief to Max Group Chairman’s Son

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered an interim stay on the recent Delhi High Court order that sentenced Veer Singh, the son of Analjit Singh, founder and chairperson of the Max Group conglomerate, to three months of simple imprisonment for contempt of court.

A bench of Justice BR Gavai, Justice CT Ravikumar and Justice PV Sanjay Kumar admitted Veer Singh’s appeal and directed a stay on the imprisonment sentence and the look-out circular issued against him.

The appeal was in response to the Delhi High Court’s order passed earlier this month, which had sentenced Veer Singh to three months of simple imprisonment for contempt of court. A division bnech of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Neena Bansal Krishna, had also directed the local Station House Officer (SHO) to issue arrest warrants and a Look Out Circular (LOC) against him.

In his appeal to the Apex Court, Veer Singh sought exemption from surrendering before the authorities in an interim application.

The High Court’s order came in a plea filed by Singh’s wife, Kinri Dhir ( Singh denies marrying her), to initiate contempt of court proceedings against him for disobeying the court’s orders. Dhir claimed that on June 1, 2023, Singh had assured the High Court that he would continue to pay maintenance to her and that the maintenance for May would be transferred within 24 hours. However, this was not complied with, as admitted by Singh’s counsel. The counsel argued that the contempt petition was not maintainable.

When the High Court ordered Singh to be physically present for the next hearing, his counsel informed the court that Singh was not in India and, therefore, could not appear.

The High Court observed that it was apparent that Singh was not willing to purge the contempt by complying with the orders, leading to the imposition of a three-month simple imprisonment sentence for contempt of court. This decision led to the present appeal before the Supreme Court.