The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has clarified that appeals under Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 — specifically under Section 19(1) — are only maintainable when the Court has imposed punishment for contempt.

A Division Bench of Justices Sindhu Sharma and Shahzad Azeem observed that orders issued during the pendency of contempt proceedings — such as directions for compliance reports — are “interlocutory” and do not adjudicate culpability or impose any penalty, and therefore cannot be challenged under Section 19.
The bench was hearing a Letters Patent Appeal filed against such an interim order in a contempt matter involving a dispute over regularisation of services under writ court directions. Since the impugned order merely required a fresh compliance report and did not conclude the contempt issue or punish the parties, the court dismissed the appeal as not maintainable.
The decision reaffirms the interpretation of Section 19 adopted by the Supreme Court of India in recent judgments — that only final orders imposing contempt punishment (or those closely connected to such orders) are amenable to appeal under Section 19; interim or procedural directions must await the conclusion of proceedings before they can be challenged