JUDGMENT 1. On June 15, 1949, Lahiri, J. (as he then was) and my learned brother issued a Rule at the instance of Prasanta Kumar Sur (hereinafter referred to as the petitioner) calling upon the opposite party Amulya Kumar Sur why he should not be committed for contempt or otherwise dealt with under the Contempt of Courts act, 32 of 1952, for having violated an order dated May 19, 1959 in Second Miscellaneous Appeal No. 12 of 1959, where the petitioner is the appellant and the said opposite party one of the respondents. 2. This order, on the alleged breach of which the instant contempt Rule is rested, is an order appointing the petitioner as the receiver of the fishery in controversy, known as Ghosaler Abad Jalkar. It bears inter alia: "amulya Kumar Sur will hand over all collection papers and all other documents necessary for the proper management of the fishery to Prasanta Kumar Sur forthwith. " This the opposite party did not do. Hence the petitioner moved the court and obtained the Rule we are now seized of by virtue of an assignment made to us by the Chief Justice. Mr. Mukherji, the learned advocate for the opposite party, raises a preliminary objection that the petitioner has since died, resulting in abatement of the proceedings. Mr. Ghose, the learned advocate for the petitioner, refers to the Privy Council decision in (l) H. H. Brij Indar Singh v. Lala Kashi Ram and others, 26 C. L. J. 572, and contends that the substitution made in the main appeal aborts abatement. Neither of the contentions can receive effect. That proceedings for contempt as alleged, pertaining though to what is called civil contempt, are quasi-criminal all the same is now well held. A considerable body of decisions cluster round the subject. But reference may be made only to Nripendra Narayan Choudhury v. Beda Bala Debt, (2) 55 C. W. N. 479, where Harries, C. J. (Das, J., agreeing) observes at page 483: : "in the case of Homi Rustomji Pradivala v. Sub-Inspector Baig, (A. I. R. 1944 Lahore 196), a Special Bench of the Lahore High Court of which I was a member laid down that proceedings for contempt of court, though not criminal, are of a quasi-criminal nature. . . . . . " 3. . . . . . " 3. If that is borne in mind, the death of the petitioner, at whose instance the proceedings are initiated, appears to be of the least materiality. Once the proceedings get going, (as here), it becomes a matter between the alleged contemner, on one hand, and the court he is said to be in contempt of, on the other. What is therefore of the utmost materiality is that the opposite party, said to be the contemner, is alive. By way of analogy may be cited section 431 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 5 of 1898, providing inter alia abatement of the vast majority of criminal appeals on the death of the accused The reverse is not true. The death of the complainant does not cause abatement of criminal proceedings. 4. So the preliminary objection raised by Mr. Mukherji fails on such a consideration-not on what Mr. Ghose contends, (1) Brij Indar Singh's case lays down, in so far as it is material here, that substitution of parties effected in the appeal court is too good a substitution for the primary court too. An appeal is but continuation of the suit. That can hardly be said of contempt proceedings, an offshoot of the appeal no doubt, but by no means continuation thereof. On merits, the contention, faintly made on behalf of the opposite party, is that he had had no notice of the court's order dated May 19, 1959. The materials we have had put before completely satisfy us the other way about. In the first place, the order was made in presence of the opposite party's Advocate and also of his son Abanibhusan Sur. In the second place, the copies of correspondence between the parties, as annexed to the petition for the contempt Rule, reveal that he was duly posted with the order of the court. Indeed, in his letter dated June 8, 1959, to the address of the petitioner, (annexure E to the contempt petition) he refers to the original lease dated May 10, 1955, of the fishery having been filed in the court of a Subordinate Judge, Alipore, and forming part of the record there in Title Suit No. 185 of 1954. So, he observes, he has nothing to deliver to the petitioner. So, he observes, he has nothing to deliver to the petitioner. Then, by that letter, he forwards a copy of the letter of demand dated April 11, 1958, served upon the lessees of the fishery-a letter which, it is said, will show that nothing has been paid since then. And this letter is forwarded so "regarding the collection papers to show the amount due to me by lessees. '' The opposite party concludes the letter expressing the hope that immediate action will be taken against the lessees (obviously by the addressee, the petitioner) "to safeguard my interests" After all such illuminating admissions denial of knowledge of the court's order sounds more ingenious than ingenuous And it cannot but draw largely on our belief that the opposite party's Advocate and son knew of the order and that he did not. So this contention fails too. 5. Much the most important question is had the opposite party collection papers and other necessary documents to hand over to the petitioner in terms of the order of the court? If the answer is in. the negative, obviously the opposite party cannot be said to have violated the court's order which assumes the existence of collection papers and other necessary documents. The opposite party consistently maintains that he had not such papers and documents ever. Nothing that the petitioner says proves its falsity. 6. This is one consideration. Another is: the fishery yields an income of Rs 42,9587/- as. for four years from Asarh 1362 B. S., to Asarh 27, 1366 B. S., as stated by the opposite party in his counter-affidavit dated July 28, 1959 One inference may therefore be that he had had the papers and documents without which it would have been difficult for him to protect his interest But can it be the only inference to the exclusion of all other hypotheses to the contrary? There are fishery-owners and fishery-owners. While the majority of them may maintain such papers and documents, the minority may not; all the more so, when the opposite party files before us diaries, general accounts maintained in exercise books and a Jabeda khata too showing certain payments made by the lessees and the like as some sort of an aide memoir. There are fishery-owners and fishery-owners. While the majority of them may maintain such papers and documents, the minority may not; all the more so, when the opposite party files before us diaries, general accounts maintained in exercise books and a Jabeda khata too showing certain payments made by the lessees and the like as some sort of an aide memoir. When the position is (as here) that two conclusions follow, the one that favours the opposite party standing in the position of an accused must necessarily be drawn. In other words, the benefit of a reasonable doubt must go to the opposite party. That in proceedings for contempt the law is so is evident from what Harries, C. J. observes in (2) Nripendra Narayan Chowdhurys case supra at page 483: it must be remembered that Exparte Langley, Exparte Smith, In re: Bishop [ (1879) 13 Ch. D. 110] was a case of civil contempt and the court of Appeal was of opinion that as the liberty of the subject was involved the court had to be satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that notice of the Court's order had been received before the acts complained of were committed. 7. Here also the liberty of a citizen is involved. And we are left in doubt, not about the opposite party's lack of knowledge of the court's order, but about the existence of papers and documents the court had ordered the opposite party to hand over to the petitioner. We cannot therefore find the opposite party guilty of contempt. In the result, the Rule is discharged. Each party do pay and bear its costs.