HC refuses to issue contempt notice to Naveen Jindal

The Delhi High Court today refused to issue any contempt notice to industrialist Naveen Jindal, for one of his former employees' act of recording court proceedings during a coal block allocation matter relating to his company.
A bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva simply listed the matter for further hearing on May 25 and did not heed the Centre's repeated pleas for issuing a contempt notice to Jindal.
"We have heard your arguments. Let's move on to the main matter," the bench said, adding it will decide later whether to issue contempt notice.
The Coal Ministry, represented by Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain and advocate Akshay Makhija, contended that notice be issued in the matter to Jindal as well as the employee Rajesh Sharma, who was caught recording.

ASG Jain said notice needs to be issued to Jindal as he was present in court when the incident occurred, but did not say anything.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the industrialist, argued that there are several hundreds of employees in Jindal's company and he cannot be expected to recognise everyone.

"But he would recognise his General Manager (Sharma)," Jain said in response and added "let him (Jindal) say he does not recognise his GM."
The court, however, said it had examined Sharma's phone and found he had recorded nothing.
It also took on record Sharma's affidavit in which he has said he was not instructed by anyone to record the court proceedings and that he had done this on his own.

The incident occurred on March 27 during the hearing of two matters relating to annulment of tender of two Chhattisgarh mines - Gare Palma IV/2 and IV/3 - for which JPL had put in the winning bid.