The Bench consisting of Justice K K Usha and Justice G Sivarajan said they were satisfied prima facie that the four officials committed civil contempt by willfully disobeying the direction issued by the court on August 27 to afford police protection to petitioner Jacob Abraham and five other opposition members of the Payyavoor panchayat when they went to the panchayat office on September 1 to participate in the committee meeting.

The meeting was held to consider a no-confidence motion against panchayat president T M Joshy.

The Bench posted the contempt case for November 4 for framing charges against them. The accused persons have been asked to be present in court on thatdate.

However, since no prima facie case is made out against T M Joshy, the Bench dropped the proceedings against him and discharged him from the contempt of court case.

The Bench had heard both sides elaborately. According to the petitioners, the police, instead of affording protection to them to reach the venue of the meeting, detained them in the police station at the instance of the party in power.

The police officials took the defence that their inability to take the opposition members to the panchayat office had been caused by an error of judgement on their part to correctly assess the situation and not because of any deliberate or willful intention to disobey the High Court.

Even though the situation in the area was tense as the CPM workers were agitated over the opposition members moving the no-confidence motion, in the assessment of the police the situation was not so tense as warranting promulgation of prohibitory orders and the situation could be dealt with by police force.