While setting aside, Calcutta High Court order revoking doctor's license for contempt of court, the Supreme Court said that Courts must not be hypersensitive or swung by emotions while exercising contempt jurisdiction

The bench headed by Justices BR Gavai and Sanjay Karol said –

"The court has time and again asserted that the contempt jurisdiction enjoyed by the courts is only for the purpose of upholding the majority of the judicial system that exists.

"While exercising this power, the courts must not be hypersensitive or swung by emotions but must act judiciously," the SC said.

The bench said the doctor's license cannot be suspended as a penalty in contempt proceedings.

"A medical practitioner guilty of contempt of court may also be so for professional misconduct but the same would depend on the gravity/nature of the contemptuous conduct of the person in question.

"They are; however, offences separate and distinct from each other. The former is regulated by the Contempt of Court Act, 1971 and the latter is under the jurisdiction of the National Medical Commission Act, 2019," the bench said.

The top court was hearing a plea challenging the judgement of a division bench of the Calcutta High Court which upheld various orders of a single bench.

The single bench had suspended the appellant's medical license as a penalty in the contempt proceedings initiated against him for failure to remove an unauthorised construction.

"In respect of the unauthorised construction that remains, we direct that an undertaking be furnished before the concerned High Court that remedial construction to safeguard the soundness of the existing building and the consequent demolishing of the unauthorised construction shall be completed within a reasonable time," the bench said.