Days after the Punjab and Haryana High Court passed an order on August 3 in the Dearness Allowance case, an application before the court alleged that persons holding various posts in the ruling party in Punjab had tweeted and retweeted a post by Saurav Das — co-convener of the Cockroach Janta Party — in an attempt to “scandalise and politicise” the court’s decision.The application, seeking appropriate action against “all those who are trying to scandalise and politicise the order dated August 3 passed by this Court and are trying to lower the authority of the Court”, was placed before a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor. It is now scheduled to come up for further hearing on September 21.“That it is pertinent to mention here that the people holding various posts in the ruling party in the State of Punjab have rather tweeted and retweeted the tweet of one Saurav Das, and are trying to scandalise and politicise the decision dated August 3 passed by this Court. Such action not only shows that the respondent-State is wilfully disobeying the order passed by this Court, but it also shows that they are rather making an attempt to malign the image of the High Court, for which the applicants prayed that appropriate action, including proceedings for criminal contempt, be initiated against all accused who are involved in such activities,” applicant Manjeet Singh Randhawa said.The application, filed through counsel Gagneshwar Walia and Hargun Sethi, was argued by senior advocate Chetan Mittal.“It is pertinent to mention here that the Court has constitutional and inherent jurisdiction under Article 215 of the Constitution of India read with Section 2(1)(c) and Section 15 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, to initiate contempt proceedings on its own motion against persons who try to scandalise the judgment passed by the Hon’ble Court,” it was added.The applicant added that the case was squarely one of criminal contempt, for which the contemnors were liable to be punished in the larger public interest of preventing any undue interference and upholding the dignity and majesty of the law.“The contemnors have tried to scandalise and lower the authority of the Court by tweeting and retweeting such content, which tends to bring the Court into disrepute and ridicule in its judicial capacity,” it was added.